


The Parting of the Ways

by SullustanGin



Series: Corellian Whiskey and Sullustan Gin [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Conspiracy, Corellian Whiskey, Crash Landing, Developing Relationship, During Canon, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Forced Baptism, Grave Robbers, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Marcus Trant is a BAMF, Mild Sexual Content, Port Nowhere, Slow Burn, Some Humor, Space Battles, Staged Crime Scene, Star Wars: The Old Republic - Forged Alliances, Unresolved Sexual Tension, competent crew, sullustan gin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24567355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SullustanGin/pseuds/SullustanGin
Summary: Rakata Prime was supposed to be the end of the Revanite Conspiracy. It was supposed to be the start of a game for the Smuggler and the Spy.Man plans; Fortuna laughs, and the game pieces are scattered across the galaxy: the conclusion to Forged Alliances.
Relationships: Theron Shan/Female Smuggler, Theron Shan/Smuggler
Series: Corellian Whiskey and Sullustan Gin [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642009
Comments: 18
Kudos: 27





	1. Mail Call

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, readers, for hanging around. 
> 
> I have no idea what the heck I'm doing, but I did get a tumblr for my fandom stuff, since it seems a lot of people have one/use one for prompts (which I'm happy to do). That's at https://sullustangin.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> There are some borderline NSFW sections in this fic, so I'll be tagging each chapter that fits that description.

_To: Marcus Trant_

_From: Jace Malcom_

_Subject: Imperial Military Conscription_

_The Supreme Commander requests a re-evaluation of the Imperial Military after the mass conscription of slave codes. Preliminary intel suggests that not all 20 million codes are to be associated with the military. A large number will be pressed into state service due to age, physical condition, limits on the Imperial budget, and other factors. More precise demographics required._

_Based upon this large conscription, SIS should generate a report pertaining to the logistical abilities of the Empire to launch an offensive and the timeline for such an offensive, factoring in integration, training, and supply of these new conscripts._

_It is anticipated that some Force users will be detected by the Imperial screening protocols. The Supreme Commander requests an estimate of new trainees that will be destined for Korriban. This will be forwarded on to the Jedi Grand Master._

_\--JM_

_To: Jace Malcom_

_From: Marcus Trant_

_CC: Theron Shan_

_Subject: Re: Imperial Military Conscription_

_The raw numbers that we’ve gathered on the slave codes suggest that only about 6 million men and women will enter the military; the other 14 million are children, elderly, disabled, or in some other way disqualified from military service. The Empire has raised taxes to feed, clothe, and train their new recruits, so money in this regard is a non-factor._

_However, due to the influx of troops and the money spent on new isotope-5 warships, the Empire currently has limited ability to launch a grand offensive. Until the new conscripts are fully integrated and the slave market returns to operation, the Empire is financially strapped. The taxes can only grow the military rather than support a new front in the war. They are further challenged by the chaos on Makeb, which has made acquisition of isotope-5 more difficult for the Empire but easier for the Republic (at a high cost through unofficial lines)._

_As to potential new Sith lords being trained on Korriban, we estimated that out of 6 million enlisted in the military, about 1% are going to be detected as Force sensitive – approximately 60,000. The Sith trials are known for the rigor and fatality rate. We estimate 20,000 will survive to enter the ranks of the Sith. There will be attrition thereafter from within; this is the Sith Empire._

_I have forwarded your original message and copied in Agent Theron Shan on this matter. Agent Shan contracted the Voidhound on the Korriban raid and the Tython defense. Since that collaboration, the Voidhound has gone on to be responsible for the Imperial Stock Exchange crash and the festivities on Makeb._

_Agent Shan has been investigating Sith interest in Rakata technology and the acquisition of these pieces on the black market. This has been a long-term concern of the Republic, and I have been pleased with the progress made on controlling these pieces. However, I think we can redirect his attention toward his previous affiliate._

_\--MT_

_To: Theron Shan_

_From: Jace Malcom_

_CC: Marcus Trant_

_Subject: Assets_

_My office inquired as to whether “Technoplague” was responsible for recent events. The answer was officially and unofficially negative. The Voidhound has claimed responsibility. After fulfilling a contract with the Republic for Makeb, she has been loose with her criminal empire._

_Has the status of the Voidhound changed, based upon the severity of the attack on the Imperial markets? Has there been any interest in returning to the Republic fold? The Voidhound was a valuable asset on Makeb and unofficially in other places, if memory serves. I am aware of the Dodonna scandal and other financial issues that have strained the relationship._

_Republic-allied or not, for the right price, could Voidfleet be utilized to assist in a disruption of Imperial training facilities, which will be overburdened at this point?_

_-JM_

_To: Jace Malcom_

_From: Theron Shan_

_CC: Marcus Trant_

_Subject: Re: Assets_

_Voidfleet follows the Voidhound, but they are not organized as a military or even a para-military force; these are smugglers who render tribute for protection and assistance and, at times, participation in more organized ventures (such as Makeb’s isotope-5 bartering in exchange for hard drugs and bounties)._

_The Voidhound remains uninterested in any permanent or formal affiliation with the Republic. She has the time if the Republic has the money, at least half up front. As to recent events on Dromund Kaas, the Voidhound was responding to a bounty contract placed on her by a Dark Council member for the aforementioned events on Makeb. That was strictly a personal grudge, though the Voidhound has demonstrated strong opposition to the slave trade, past and present._

_In short, it is not recommended to be antagonistic toward the Voidhound. There has been no interest in outright controlling parts of space like the Hutt Cartel. The Voidhound continues to undermine Republic authority in regions of space already known to have corruption issues, but equal treatment has been given to the Empire and the Hutt Cartel in this regard. Recent illicit shipments of kolto from Manaan reached colonists of all three governments after institutional failures._

_If the Supreme Commander wishes to utilize the Voidhound, it is recommended that it be done on a small scale: her personal ship and crew, on a project that would be more inclined toward intelligence acquisition or manipulation of trade lanes or products rather than a military operation._

_\--T._

_To: Theron Shan_

_From: Marcus Trant_

_CC: Jace Malcom_

_What is the current status of the Rakata technology black market? Is Voidfleet involved in the smuggling of it? Can the Voidhound control who receives such technology?_

_\--MT_

_To: Theron Shan_

_From: Jace Malcom_

_CC: Marcus Trant_

_To follow up on the Director’s questions, is it possible for the Republic to benefit from use of Rakata technology?_

_\--JM_

_To: Marcus Trant; Jace Malcom_

_From: Theron Shan_

_Please find attached Agent Fauler’s reports from Tatooine as well as a summary of findings on Belsavis pertaining to Rakata technology found in situ. Rakata technology violates many of the principles enshrined within the Galactic Constitution, plus it also tends to have strings attached; the users end up doing the bidding of a long-dead third party. We also have some indication that recently, the Order of Shasa on Manaan was attempting to use it for unknown purposes. It resulted in the explosion of their underwater facility, which has led to a temporary kolto shortage._

_Voidfleet is most certainly involved in the kolto trade. It is not involved with trade in Rakata technology. The dealers and buyers for Rakata tech appear to be wary of the Voidhound and act independently. The Voidhound in private communiques has indicated that the assessments made in the previous paragraph are accurate; when she finds it, she destroys the tech rather than make profit off it, which should indicate to both the Director and the Supreme Commander how dangerous these artifacts are._

_The Empire is also concerned about the circulation of Rakata technology, but it is in agreement with my assessment and that of the Voidhound: it is too dangerous to utilize._

_\--T._

_To: Theron Shan_

_From: Marcus Trant_

_What is it with you and smugglers?_

Theron declined to answer that one. _  
_


	2. Pick Ups (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virtue's Thief and her passengers start their journey to Lehon/Rakata Prime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title suggests, NSFW to start (to the first ** break), but the rest of the chapter is SFW. I've always loved the banter and dynamic in Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, so find the reference. :)

The opportunity.

_The edge of his shirt untucked, just once, while he’s distracted with something on a datapad._

The risk.

_The catch of breath and the olive-gold eyes that open wide as her fingers make contact with his skin under his shirt, the pause as she waited for him to give his consent, dark eyes glittering._

The test of skill.

_The risk yields reward, lips crashing together (finally!) as his fingers fly over her far-too-many buttons, trying to get to her and as she works his jacket off of his shoulders and down his arms._

The thrill of a little victory.

_The scrape of his stubble against her neck, against the skin below, as his tongue makes her cry out, one hand’s fingers weave into his hair as the other attempts to make fast work of buckles and zippers_

The rush of more as the games go on.

_He hoists her up to the desk he was working at, datapad and paperwork flung to the floor. He’s muttering about he needs her like this, wants her like this, does she want it like this, stop him if she doesn’t, please_

The danger of losing what little you have.

_That second of still as they realize what they’re doing, how this is going to change everything, how much she wants this as she lets the cold surface of the desk bite into her skin_

And then the big win

_That satisfying first plunge, of wet heat of firm flesh of desire of pliable thighs of the first “oh” ---_

Eva’s eyes opened, the dream fading in sharpness and organization as she regained consciousness. 

She wanted him bad.

It wasn’t the first time he’d made appearances in her dreams. The fantasy was escalating far faster than the real-life contact. 

She was cognizant he needed the services of a therapist more than the services of Venus. Even though Eva always had questionable judgment in that department, she held off, because she did care about him.

Theron was her friend.

All bets were off if he started it, however. She was not in the running for sainthood, no matter what Risha said. That said, Eva was pretty sure that praying to the Three Moons for others to make questionable moral choices would be ineffective. 

After she rolled out of bed, freshened up, and applied her Dermaplast, Eva dressed for the day and made her way to the galley. Her caf was waiting, and she drank it with Bowie while reading the titles of her Holonet messages. 

“How 's the arm?” the Wookiee asked, as he had every morning for the last two weeks.

“Better every day,” she answered, as she did every morning. “And I actually mean it. Feels about 80-85%.” 

Bowie huffed happily and took a sip of his caf. 

Eva finished sorting the mail and then peered around him. “You hiding the pastries from Corso again?”

“He inhales them. I don’t even think he chews – he just unhinges his jaw and swallows them, like a snake,” Bowdaar grunted in disgust as he reached into the cabinet behind him and passed Eva a kessinnamon roll. 

“He’s a growing boy,” Eva joked as she bit into her breakfast.

“Horizontally, if he doesn’t watch it.” Bowdaar played the grumpy act to the hilt, but Eva knew he was privately thrilled that she was eating and sleeping normal hours again since the attack on the Imperial Stock Exchange. 

Risha had suggested that every time Eva got into a snit, she should be shot – the violence seemed to reboot her. 

Akaavi’s birthday had come and gone. Along with the opportunity to do some wetwork, Eva had permitted her to keep the armour of the assassin she had captured and floated the offer of a new suit of armour, crafted from new materials or from metal in her prior sets. “I’m not here to strip you of your father’s armour – but if you plan on starting your own clan one day, that fresh start should have some fresh armour to go with it – something that is your own, not of the dead.”

Akaavi, before becoming lost in thought on the matter, managed to answer, “The dead live beyond physical objects, it is true. I will consider your offer. Thank you, Captain.”

Eva was half-way through her second kessinnamon roll as her Holo transceiver sang out again, this time with an urgent message. With her free hand, she grabbed it and looked at the sender. “It’s Spike.”

The Wookiee mused, “Back to Carrick we go?”

“Probably. He normally doesn’t send urgent messages. Looks like Lana and Jakarro turned up something hot.” She shovelled the last of the pastry into her mouth before resuming an intimate relationship with her caf. 

“Any idea if it was a sex tape?” Guss had returned from his week’s vacation, taken as his present to Akaavi. His absence was highly appreciated by the Zabrak.

“There is something wrong with you,” Bowdaar glared at him. “The pretty blonde lady is cute, though.”

“I’ll try to grab her off the rebound for you when inevitably, D4 declares his undying love and Jakarro comes to his senses,” Eva muttered around her caf mug, not breaking her eye contact with her transceiver. “They’re like an old married couple, except without any memory of why they got married in the first place.” 

Risha breezed into the galley to get her cup of caf. “If Bowdaar can make a reservation for Lana, can I comfort Theron after you ruin him?”

Eva snorted. “That would require something getting off the ground with him.”

Risha gave her a mock shocked look. “Captain, what’s the hold up here? Normally, we’re trying to prevent intergalactic incidents caused by your flights of fancy.”

Eva put her mug down on the counter and gestured Bowdaar for a refill. “Too much ballast for lift-off.”

“Yours or his?” Akaavi stuck her head in, and Bowdaar made a detour to fill her thermos before giving Eva the last of the first round of caf. Leave it to her to strike the matter at its heart with so few words. 

“Yes,” Eva replied. She stood up with her caf mug in hand. “I’m going to wake up Corso so he can berate you all for accusing me of being less than pious.” Some things never changed: Corso defending the Captain’s (non-existent) virtue was part of the routine on the ship. “That, and it’s his turn to do recalibrations on the nav computer. I have a hot date with the gunner’s compartment – heat sink isn’t working as well as it should.” 

Eva squeezed through the doorway, playful jeering at her back.

Yeah, there’d been guys since the ex. Yeah, Eva’s hunting patterns had changed since Korriban and Tython. 

Cantarus had smelled the rebound from a mile off, so he was unfailingly polite and gentlemanly and professional and turned her down cold. Twice, once for each planet they’d been together on. He was going to make some woman really happy some day.

On Corellia, Gronn was the best. He was the Grand Champion of the Hunt and had a thriving bounty business despite the Empire getting cleared out. They loved each other. They couldn’t be together. It was impossible. Mako and Eva had gotten obliterated together on Reactor Cores over the fact neither of them could have him. Gronn had stowed her in his bed for the night while Mako slept alone; Eva supposed that meant she won. Nothing happened. Nothing ever would happen, stupid Mando zealot he was. That didn’t mean the love wasn’t real, just impossible.

Makeb was good for her.

Risha the Virgin Slayer had a field day for about a month. Eva steered clear of anyone under 25 once her crewmate was prowling. It got to the point that Akaavi started to mark hers. With her teeth. The field was effectively Napalmed, so Eva picked through any survivors. 

Gronn showed up, which resulted in a lot of good times. Concurrently, since Gronn didn’t scratch every itch, there was the discovery that veteran bomb techs were profoundly gifted with their hands and fingers – it’s how they became veterans. Also, they let her push the trigger on a really big payload if they liked her. The engineer corps, however, was full of goal-oriented perfectionist nerds that had bloomed late and were hitting their stride, a potent combination. 

Eva had fun on Makeb, in the end. None of them were anything like her ex. 

Since then, Gronn shot at her ship and made her chase him across the galaxy (which had happened more than once, much to the fury of Eva’s crew). Eva had her fair share of pick ups. Never really kept in contact with any of them.

So this thing with another spy was significant. There was an actual dangerous threat of a real, fully-functional something with a single man.

Eva made her way toward crew quarters to scream, “BLACK HOLE.”

It was more efficient than any alarm clock they’d ever found for Corso.

**

Theron kept an ear out for his asset as he stood in the operations center at Carrick Station. The rest of his attention was directed toward what he was officially looking into for SIS at the moment: Rakata technology. He just conveniently left out that Darok and Arkous were involved.

Voices drifted into the command center before Theron Shan turned around to greet his anticipated visitors.

“That was completely and utterly uncalled for, Cap.”

“You sleep like the dead under twelve feet of permafrost on Hoth, and you’ve murdered multiple alarm chronos. I’m not wasting money or time on waking you up nicely.”

“You know I hate black holes. We’ve had enough scrapes with them that my heart just beats out of my chest and –”

“If that’s the only way I can get you awake and working on ship time, then you need to sort out your sleep cycle and get with the program. That or swap the nightshift.”

“I’m a morning person.”

“Could have fooled everyone on board.

The holocomm roared to life in front of Theron as the chatter behind him continued. It was the third such call in fifteen minutes as Jakarro impatiently demanded action from Theron and his asset. “Is that smuggler there yet? The smart little one, not the fish. There she is. Does she have another idiot with her?” 

“Golly, no wonder you didn’t adopt this one. Makes Akaavi seem like a sweet little lamb in comparison.” Corso caused Eva to choke on air as she tried to stifle her laughter as they came up behind Theron. 

Theron nearly broke a smile too, but he didn’t want to agitate Jakarro anymore than he already was. “We can’t wait any longer!” the Wookiee exclaimed.

Theron finally spoke. “Once I brief them, we’ll be there right away, Jakarro. Just don’t tear the limbs off of anything…. Anything else.” 

“Wookiees,” muttered Corso and Eva in unison, completely understanding. Jakarro growled one last time before cutting the comm.

Theron turned around. “Good that you’re finally here. We’re going to need to move fast.” Theron took in the sight of a more relaxed Corso and a much-healed Eva: good. He wasn’t looking for conflict or something else to worry about. “Thanks to you, Corso, Lana has managed to put eyes on Arkous’ co-conspirators that are still operation on Dromund Kaas. It’s led her into a few nests of Revanites that weren’t expected.”

Corso tipped an imaginary hat. “Not a problem. As long as they aren’t dumb enough to come round Cap again, I’ll leave it to you and the Sith, if you can trust her.” 

Theron nodded, slightly grim. He’d had his suspicions, but Lana was solid, especially after the Stock Exchange incident. So far. “She’s also uncovered a few more Revanites who have infiltrated the Republic military. I’ve been slicing the traitors’ communications and tracked the messages back to Darok and Arkous.”

Eva’s brow creased. “You have a fix on their location?”

“They’re in a hidden facility on the planet Rakata Prime. That’s our target.” Theron pulled up an astrogation chart on the holo terminal. Both Captain and First Mate silently stared at it. 

Eva spoke first. “Edge of the Unknown Regions.” She took a few steps forward to stand beside Theron, hands resting on the command board. 

“Fancy way of saying Back-Ass of Nowhere.” Corso shoved his hands into his pockets, gazing up at the chart. “I’m going to want us to chart two ways in and out. Nav computer is still acting dumb, and there’s all sorts of nasty surprises in the Unknown Regions.”

Neither of the smugglers saw Theron’s eyes flit toward his datapad. Success. That ancient nav computer could be sliced after all. Theron often set himself challenges in secret just to prove to himself that he could do things. That could be useful, later.

Eva drummed her fingers once across the holo terminal before straightening up and turning to face Theron. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how suicidal is this one going to be?”

Theron smirked. “How’s the arm?”

Eva looked over at Corso. “I told Bowie 80-85%. That about right?” Corso nodded, slightly distracted as he considered the flight path to Rakata Prime. She looked up at Theron again. “Yeah. About that.” He could see the playfulness in her russet eyes. He had to be careful.

“No worse than usual. So maybe a 12? 13 with the arm.” Theron paused for a moment as his eyes dropped to her left arm. He could only linger a second before a sharp clearing of her throat made him look at her face. She was not pleased with his concern. “You could send-”

“Don’t even start. You know my rules of idiocy.” She pointedly crossed her arms. “In an ideal world, I’d like to have another week off, but if time’s an issue, then we have to move on the intel.”

Corso suggested, “Take Risha, then. Best combination of medic and point-shot.” 

Eva nodded, making eye contact with him briefly before returning her attention to Theron. “What are we looking at, planetside?”

Theron cleared the astrogation chart away and brought up images of Rakata tech. Eva’s eyes and attention migrated immediately toward them, her arms uncrossing to rest on her hips. Theron continued his briefing. “The messages I’ve decoded indicated that the cyborg technology you ran into on Manaan was just the prototype phase. On Rakata Prime, they’re in full production.” Theron gestured and an old archive image appeared. “They’re taking pieces of the Star Forge and implanting them into their own people.”

“The Star Forge?”

“It was a Rakatan weapon: a giant self-sustaining factory that ran on the dark side of the Force. Revan destroyed it 300 years ago. The pieces of debris are still active though. They self-repair and even self-replicate under the right circumstances. With that technology grafted to their bodies –”

Eva frowned and let out a small sigh of exasperation as she scanned the images. “Czerka Zombies.”

“Exactly. I pulled Agent Fauler’s reports on that one, and I’ll send them over to the _Thief_. They have a bit more insight than your logs do – in part because Fauler was sitting on some SIS sub-missions that you weren’t privy to at the time.”

Eva shrugged. “Not surprised.”

Theron cut the images, drawing her attention back to him. “Jakarro is coming with Lana from Nar Shaddaa. We’ll rendezvous with them on the surface. Unsurprisingly, Jakarro wants the glory of defeating Arkous and Darok with his ship, so we’ll be running the op from his unregistered freighter.”

Eva turned her head back towards Corso. “You and the rest of the crew hang back after dropping me and Risha off. We’ll figure out a pickup either planetside or back here at Fleet.”

“Sounds good,” Corso drawled. “I’ll brief the crew and catch you back at the ship.” He started to head out of the command center, much to Theron’s surprise.

Evidently, there had been some sort of settlement since he’d last seen Corso in person. 

Eva returned her gaze to Theron, inviting “… you need a lift?” Her voice was low and cautious, already bracing for his refusal.

This time, his answer came without hesitation. “Better on the _Thief_ than on something with a registration. Give me fifteen minutes?” he asked quietly. That was easier than he thought it would be. It probably helped that there was a lot less self-flagellation than last time. 

Additionally, it was all worth it for the smile and the obvious delight in her eyes. “You got it.” She lingered for a moment, and Theron felt a warm feeling in his chest as she gave him a nod and followed her First Mate out the door.

Theron forced himself to move and collect his files before heading to grab his go bag. Not yet. Not until this op was over – then he could enjoy this. What “this” was – still unknown, months after morning coffee. But “this” was something he could look forward to. 

His hands stopped for a moment as the thought again crossed his mind that Eva was a criminal. She would not go legal, even for him. He was an SIS agent. She was the greatest smuggler in the galaxy.

Maybe Trant wasn’t too far off after all about his forbidden thrill-seeking tendencies. Even if that _was_ a motivator and he confessed to it, she’d probably take it as a compliment. That just made this even more of a wonderfully bad idea. 

**

As Theron entered the hangar with his go-bag slung around his shoulder, he realized that he hadn’t fully appreciated the size of the _Thief_. As comparatively small as the ship was to, say, a capital ship, the XS was impressively large for its agility and speed. 

Theron almost immediately noticed the slightly shady customs agents nearby, the uniforms not quite right as they helped restock the unregistered XS. Of course, she would have agents here to expedite a ship that didn’t exist. The traffic was swift and overseen by Akaavi, who took no nonsense and wasn’t afraid to bark if things were not perfect. 

As Theron drew closer, he saw familiar faces at the far right side of the ship. Bowdaar gestured up at the lateral gun turret. The guns rotated and moved. Risha stood beside the Wookiee, nose crinkled in disgust – she wasn’t happy about something. The gunner’s viewport popped open, and Eva stuck her head out to discuss the issue. Eva seemed to gesture -- what can we do about it now? No time. Risha shook her head, not satisfied. 

Theron was now within earshot of their conversation as he dropped his bag at the foot of the gangplank. “Heat sink went in fine – I haven’t live fired yet for obvious reasons. The firing radius is compromised, but I’m not seeing a way around this unless you want to do weeks in dry dock to take the entire compartment off and essentially do a rebuild from the frame up.”

“My issue is that most of the crew can’t get in there, and that’s been my issue with the lateral compartment since I came onboard. You might treasure your thinking spot, but it’s useless in combat if we need you on the bridge.” Risha put her hands on her hips.

Eva shrugged, right hand gesturing up toward the front of the ship. “It’s been on the to-do list for nearly eight years, but it always gets bumped down – launch engines, flaps, vital water systems – there’s always something more important. I’m just happy we finally got the heat sink in.” 

Risha frowned. “I know. It was getting gross and becoming a fire hazard. That said, we do need it to accommodate more than just you or me.”

Bowdaar growled. “Akaavi would have to strip to nothing to get in there. I’m impossible. Corso would have to dislocate something. Guss is not an option.” 

Risha’s comm crackled to life. “You’re going to want to add the nav computer to that honey-do list. I got it behaving, but I’m still thinking we got gremlins in there,” Corso reported. 

Bowdaar whined in displeasure.

Theron felt more than slightly guilty.

Guss joined Risha and Bowdaar on the ground. “We’re loaded up. Spy Guy arrived.”

Theron assumed that meant him, and this was confirmed by Eva’s statement. “Put him up in medbay again,” she called down as she started to seal the gunner’s port. He picked up his bag and waited to stroll up the gang plank with the rest of the crew. 


	3. Degenerates, Not Complete Anarchists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eva and Theron talk on the way to Rakata Prime. She learns about his past, and he learns about her rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story Eva tells is 75-85% accurate to actual Smuggler Chapter 1 events. There are 25 rules on the Thief, in total. Many are based off of historical pirate codes; they'll appear throughout this universe.

“So, Risha through the holo just lurches backwards and cuts comm—bails on me entirely, poof!” Eva stood in the middle of the galley, regaling the crew with what else happened on Tatooine besides killing Czerka Zombies.

Risha was chuckling despite herself. “He was nasty enough through comm. I almost asked you to strip outside and run through decontamination protocols.”

“I still think that was a good idea,” Corso innocently shrugged, beer in hand.

Eva pointed a finger at him. “Oh, wait, I’m not done with you yet.” Eva turned back to face Theron, who had not heard this story. The crew had, but Eva was a decent enough storyteller that they could hear it again. “So Diago starts screaming about how he wants the pretty lady back. Meanwhile, he’s completely ignoring the Jedi on the left who wants to kill the Sith on my right.” 

Eva gestured to the invisible Force users on either side of her. “Now, the Sith on the right can’t decided whether she wants to destroy the Jedi or _destroy_ her, if you get my meaning.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Theron was amused, shaking his head as the story went on. 

Corso piped up, “She made a pass at you, too, Cap.”

Eva nodded. “And you got jealous – not sure whether it was over me or that you weren’t included.” Corso snorted derisively. “Anyway, Sith Lady has the rocks to do the hand wavy thing. ‘You will kill this Jedi.’” Eva waved her hand in front of Theron as if she were trying to compel him. 

“No…” Theron couldn’t believe it.

“Oh, yes. It gets better. Because then the _Jedi_ turns around and does the exact same thing! ‘You will kill this Sith.’” Eva made the same dramatic hand gesture. She then straightened up and resumed her typical stance, speaking to both imaginary Force users. “I’m just like, ‘You both look dumb.’” 

“Wait for it,” Guss giggled, rocking back and forth in his chair. The room began to titter, and even Akaavi started to grin. Theron looked around the room, nervously laughing in anticipation.

Eva imitated the sultry, sulky Sith. “Sith Lady goes ‘Strong-minded, hmm? You’re no use to me.’ She and the Jedi look at each other for a _second_.” 

Then Eva dramatically whirled on her heel to face her First Mate. “They get the same idea at the same time, and _both_ of them turned to _Corso_ and said, ‘You want to kill your captain’ with the hand wave.” Eva waved her hand at Corso. Then she imitated him, twang and all. “ _And he_ pulled _a blaster_ on _me_! And tells _me_ , ‘I want to kill you, Captain.’” 

Eva froze in position, looking every bit a slack-jawed yokel, and the room erupted in laughter. Corso was a brilliant shade of crimson, but he laughed along too. 

As the laughter continued, Eva positioned herself in the middle of the room. “So, Farmboy has a blaster at my back here. Jedi on the left, Sith on the right. Those two finally draw their lightsabers. Diago is still screaming about Risha, and his fat ass has pulls a blaster. He’s told his flunky from the bar to jerk as well. But we’re not done yet. Diago then calls out his assault droids – 3 of ‘em, from just behind the Jedi.” Eva laid out where everyone was with her hands. “So there my ass is, stuck in the Octagon of Fuck My Life.”

Apparently, the invocation of geometry set Theron off, and he completely cracked up. Hard. Eva ran her tongue over her lips – mission accomplished – and continued on with the story. “Nobody besides Corso is looking at _me_ , they’re all looking at the people across from them, and I just happen to be caught in everyone’s crossfire.” 

Eva straightened up. “I did the one thing I could do.” Dramatic pause. “I hit the dirt and hoped Corso was a better shot than Diago.” She grinned and shrugged. 

The crew howled, and Corso cut in, “And I was! And I was!” Bowdaar reached over the galley counter and thumped Corso on the head. 

Eva made a grandiose bow in the middle of the galley, applause scattered throughout mixed with persistent laughter, and then she sat down on a stool at the galley counter to eat the dinner Bowie served her. 

“The Octagon of ---” Theron was still not over that line, and he was shaking with laughter.

Eva liked making him laugh. It was a rare sight. As his laughter finally began to taper off, she couldn’t resist. “Glad the droids were there, though. Pentagon of Goddammit doesn’t have the same ring to it.” 

And the SIS Agent was again reduced to near tears as he laughed. 

Risha looked over the counter at Eva. “Strange sense of humor. What would happen if we gave him an algebra book?” 

Eva stifled a laugh and shrugged her shoulders once as she dug into her dinner. The rest of the crew grabbed their meals and filtered out of the galley, having had their fill of dinner and a show. Risha gave Eva a small nudge as she walked out the door.

It wasn’t selfless encouragement, that was for sure. 

Eva turned to look at Theron, who was still piecing himself back together. “Hey. You want dinner? Bowie will serve you up if you didn’t eat before leaving Carrick.” 

Theron took a steadying breath and nodded. Eva raised her chin at the Wookiee, who went to work prepping a plate. Theron rose from his place at the corner table in the galley and joined Eva at the counter, perching on the stool beside hers. “Before you dig in, you know what the most ridiculous part of the whole story was?”

Theron looked at her, a smile already present.

“Fauler had the gall to demand where I was and wondered why I wasn’t taking any holo calls.” 

Theron started to laugh again, much more quietly though.

Bowdaar grumbled at her. “Now you let him eat in peace. I worked hard on that.”

“And it’s great, as usual.” Eva wasn’t lying as she dug into the nerf with burgundy sauce over rice. “You going to be ok flying around the Unknown Regions with Corso?”

“Have to learn sometime,” Bowie replied. “I’m almost finished clocking my hours. Then you have four pilots on board.” 

“You should be proud of that.” Eva spun to look over at Theron, who was tucking in to his dinner. “ _Virtue’s Thief_ never had a modern piloting system. So no push-button starts or auto tracking – you can still take her into complete manual piloting. Takes much longer to get licensed on an original compared to modern ships and shuttles.”

Theron nodded then looked up at Bowie. “This is really good.” The Wookiee huffed happily. “So does everyone take a turn cooking, or --?” Theron continued to eat as he waited for a response.

Eva exchanged a quick look with Bowie, who had tensed, then gracefully intervened. “Bowie is the god of the kitchen. Guaranteed never to give us food poisoning. Other members on the crew – we would have questions about.”

Bowie let out a few more huffs, the equivalent of a chuckle for a Wookie. Theron didn’t need to know _why_ Bowie _needed_ to be in control of the kitchen. At least not yet.

“Do you know how?” Theron asked around a forkful.

“I somehow managed to survive for four years before Risha and Corso showed up, and we managed not to resort to cannibalism until Bowie got here. So yeah, I cook, once in awhile – try not to intrude on the big guy’s domain.” Eva scraped around the bottom of the bowl. “Yourself?”

Theron sheepishly shook his head. “Beyond activating a heated ration pack and boiling water, nope. But I can tell you about every good restaurant on Coruscant, and I’m working my way through Alderaan next.” 

Bowdaar let out a few barking noises. “Naboo – finest foods in the galaxy. We went there for their culinary festival for my birthday. I still have dreams about some of the delights there.” 

“Food and fashion,” Eva duly noted. “Risha had fun looking at the clothes. Akaavi did too, surprisingly. I was with Bowie on the food – fantastic desserts. Why didn’t you learn?”

Theron chewed, then swallowed. “Went from being a youngling to military school with a mess then to SIS. Home ec was never on the curriculum. Plus I’m rarely at home in my apartment – kitchen hasn’t been used much. Ever, I think.” This didn’t seem to bother him at all. At least he was able appreciate a home-cooked meal, though. 

Eva and Theron continued eating their supper in silence. “You put things up in here,” Bowdaar grunted at them before he left. Eva gave him a nod, and he was off, leaving the two alone in the galley. 

She finished first, and she seized the strategic advantage of Theron having a mouth full of food. “So, extracurriculars. While I’m planetside, the rest of the crew will be scavenging the nearby starship graveyard.”

Theron hastily swallowed. “You do know there’s all sorts of – wait, that’s exactly why you’re doing it: Rakata tech, black market.” He gave her a withering look. “I thought you destroyed that sort of thing.”

Eva noncommittally rolled a shoulder as she programmed the dish scrubber. “I destroy it when it’s about to be used to commit genocide or make zombies. When I come across little pieces….” She simply didn’t finish the sentence. 

Theron continued to eat, glaring at her. “I gave an official report saying you destroyed it.” 

“Thanks for the cover. I won’t rat you out.”

That response made him even more annoyed. 

She reassured him, “We’d sit on it til these crazy cultists are dealt with. But also, there are still some valuable parts and fuel cells floating around out there.”

Theron struck at the bottom of his bowl. “It’s illegal because sentient remains are scattered throughout. It’s marked off as a burial ground.” 

Eva put her bowl into the dish scrubber. “According to an archaeologist friend of ours, it’s only grave-robbing if it’s under 50 years old. Anything older, and it’s research!” She gave him her most charming smile.

Theron set his mind to clearing his bowl, even as the lines on his forehead grew deeper. “And how does the crew plan on justifying it if they are caught while we’re planetside?”

“The difference between research and screwing around is writing stuff down. So we’ll actually catalogue anything we’re not going to sell and make some well-placed donations to museums.”

Theron actually put his fork down at that. “Eva.”

“What?” 

Theron looked at her, exasperated. “Is there any moment you aren’t trying to game a system or run a con?”

“Nope. If a smuggler isn’t doing something constantly, they’re dead. And I can’t assume that fortune will always favor us.” She waited for him to finish eating before he handed over his bowl to be put into the dish scrubber. “For someone who always seems to be working on _something_ , that’s a strange criticism.”

Theron held up his hands once she took his bowl. “Fine, uncalled for. I suppose I’m not the only workaholic on the ship.”

Eva set the scrubber to wash as she considered the prospect. She rejected it. “I wouldn’t call myself a workaholic either – just an active mind in search of outlets.”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “You know what they call that in military school?”

“What?” she asked as she leaned against the galley doorway.

“In the brig.” The smile fully escaped from him. 

“You spend a lot of time there?” She let her eyes meet his.

“Only if I got caught.” His olive-gold eyes glittered with mischief.

“So a lot.” With a grin, she slipped out into the hallway, and she made her way to the cockpit.

She could hear Theron’s footsteps behind her, his objections also chasing her. “When I worked alone, I got away with it. Once I started involving the other guys, that’s when I got in trouble. The experience has haunted me to this day.”

Eva laughed as she reached the cockpit, the door open. “Hence the inability to play well with others?”

“For the most part.” His eyes were on her, sparkling. “There are notable exceptions.”

Eva kept her grin on as she slid into her captain’s chair and consulted all of her dials, screens, and gauges. 

“Wow.”

Eva realized that this was the first time that Theron had been physically in the cockpit. She quietly toned down her smile and let him take it in. This was her gal – she didn’t need a lot of chatter to make her look good.

The cockpit of _Virtue’s Thief_ was assiduously neat. There weren’t food wrappers or empties or anything to pollute its environment. Admittedly, the levers and buttons were worn, the labels carefully handwritten over now long-faded paint. This wasn’t a museum quality piece, but it was definitely a step into a time warp. Ships simply were not made like this anymore. The styling, arrangement, and complexity were termed as too laborious to produce at a cheap price, and so modern ships opted out. 

Eva focused on her hyperspace set up. Theron eventually sat down in the copilot’s seat, eyes still taking everything in. “You know if Jakarro’s ship is set up like this?”

Eva shook her head. “I hope to talk shop this time around – I suspect he’s not a restorationist like I am. Most XS you see out in the galaxy have accepted modern innovation. Everything is streamlined. Unless he told you otherwise, he’ll likely have some modern control system that resembles those putt-putt shuttles the Pub hands out. So easy a child could hijack it.”

“Or so easy an SIS agent could pilot it.” Eva turned her head toward him. “I have one of those putt-putt shuttles.” Theron’s expression waved somewhere among mildly offended, slightly embarrassed, and a bit amused. 

Eva cocked an eyebrow at him. “You want to learn how to fly a _real_ ship?” 

“You offering?” Theron leaned back in the copilot’s seat, hand behind his head.

“I got 1500 hours if you got 1500 hours.”

Theron’s lips twisted into a not-quite-a-smile. “We’ll see. I think I might have to settle for putt-putt shuttles and Jakarro’s XS Light for now.”

“For now.” Eva flipped through the final sequence, and then she hit the ship comm. “All right, hope dinner settled well. We’re jumping to hyperspace.” 

And with that, _Virtue’s Thief_ lurched, and the stars became lines before their eyes. There was some rattling around the ship as it transitioned from normal space. Eva saw Theron gaze around the cockpit and listen before the ship calmed down. 

Eva pulled a notebook from her pilot’s compartment and made a few notes. “Just in case we run into any problems while I’m planetside.” She consulted her chrono on the dash. “We’re going to be in hyperspace for about 12 hours, ETA 0700. Rendezvous with Lana and Jakarro at 0900.” Eva looked up at Theron. “How long you think?”

Theron turned in his seat to face her, hands on the armrests. “At minimum, 6 hours. We could push 12. I need to update some intel once we get planetside, so I appreciate the earlier ETA. I don’t anticipate bunking down there.”

“Then back to – Pub Fleet? Or Coruscant?” 

“If everything goes well, Coruscant. We’d deliver our intel and hopefully Darok. Lana would take custody of Arkous and take him to Dromund Kaas. If not, Carrick.”

Eva gave him a nod and finished making her notations, ripping the page out of her notebook, and tucking it into the visor above the pilot’s seat. She flattened down the notes on the nav computer, that bedeviled thing, to make sure they did not fall off during the night. Well, they were as prepared as they could be. 

Eva leaned back in her chair for a minute, just to run through the final checklist. “You can head to medbay if you want, Theron. I’m just going to read up here for about an hour then call it.” She looked over at him. He did look good in that chair.

Theron shrugged. “I have some reports I can read over. I’ll stay up here, if you don’t mind.” 

“I don’t mind. Be right back.” 

Eva returned shortly with two yellowed paperback novels. She was about three quarters of the way through one – should finish it tonight or tomorrow. “Hey, Theron, extracurricular reading.”

He had just enough time to snap his head up from his datapad and catch the book as it spun toward his head. Theron turned the book around in his hand. “ _Traitors of the Water, Pilots of the Air._ A skypirate novel?”

Eva took her seat. “One of the classics, if trash has classics. I like it because it has a ship with actual systems and rules – world-building stuff, you know?”

Theron gave her a doubting look. “Pirates have rules?”

“As many as smugglers do. We’re degenerates, not complete anarchists. The book does a good job with that.” Eva thumbed open her book to her bookmark and kicked her feet up on the dashboard.

Theron considered this for several minutes, looking at the book, reading the back cover, and even cracking it open to run his fingers over the typeface inside. “Ok, I’ll bite. What are some of the ship rules on the _Thief_?”

Eva replaced her bookmark in her book. “Can I preface that by saying the rules exist for reasons? As in, someone screwed up, and after we all didn’t die, I made the rule?”

Theron stifled a laugh. “Go ahead.” 

Eva thought. “Never drink the last glass of anything. This is a rule that was established after ‘no fighting on the ship’ and ‘don’t screw over your Captain’ were apparently not specific enough.”

Theron’s smile only grew as she continued. “Always carry a knife. Don’t track blood all over the ship. No pets.” Eva blinked. “Those three rules were not related, by the way.” Now he laughed. “Police your brass – also known as the ‘cover your ass and don’t bring trouble home’ rule. This ties in with ‘no shagging on the ship without prior notification’ and ‘don’t sleep naked.’”

“I’m not sure whether I should be proud or slightly concerned that I completely understand the logic behind all of that.” Theron looked at the book cover one more time before settling in to start reading in the co-pilot’s seat.

After about an hour, Eva called it a night. Both of them closed their books. Theron respectfully followed her out of the cockpit, and they parted. As he made his way toward medbay, he called out, “And Captain?” Eva turned back to look at him. “I’ll be mindful of my personal habits. I can follow your rules.”

She stood where she was until she heard the medbay door swish behind him, and Eva walked to her quarters with rules on her mind. _Wicked man._

**

Eva’s quarters were pitch black when she woke up. She lay still in her bed. Typically, she was dead to the world when it came to common ship noises. She pitched her ear…

There was a problem. 


	4. Rules of Engagement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Thief engages in space dogfighting en route to Rakata Prime. Theron follows Eva's rules (even though he doesn't do the reading), Eva follows the advice of her father, and C2 follows his programming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting a bit early because I have a one-shot for Father's Day coming on Sunday. It also marks 1000 hits and 100 kudos on the account, so thank you, readers. :)

Eva was on her feet and dressing in haste, taking only a few moments to wash her face and apply her Dermaplast. 

A knock came at her door. “Master.” It was C2. Eva unlocked her door and let it slide open. The droid’s eyes glowed in the light. “You likely already know, but we’ve fallen out of hyperspace. I have detected no irregularities in the ship’s operation, however.”

“We just stopped?”

“Yes, Master. Shall I start the caf for you?” C2 knew her well. 

She nodded. “And C2?” The droid paused at the door. “If my gut feeling is correct, you’re going to want to stay in the galley. Hallway’s going to be crowded.”

The droid bowed slightly and maneuvered into the galley next door to her room.

Sometimes, Eva missed Huck, her childhood droid, in situations like these. He was a lot more useful than making caf in a combat situation. Rest in pieces, old friend.

Eva was presentable, but far from ready for the day as she tread in stocking feet to the bridge, hair loose but with a favorite blaster in her hand and a knife stashed in a convenient place. 

_Virtue’s Thief_ had fallen out of hyperdrive without her command. Either something was wrong with the engine – which was an expensive problem but fixable – or something external had caused her to drop out. 

Eva was worried most about the second possibility. They were heading toward the Unknown Regions. All sorts of spacers were trying to get rich quick. The Unknown Regions were also known for bizarre phenomena and other risks for ships.

Eva entered her cockpit and gave a cursory glance to check for red lights. None. Worrisome. She reached to set up sensor perimeters, seeking points of contact. She crossed to the copilot’s seat and called up the ship telemetry. Her eyes scanned the numbers, seeking the problem based upon what the ship had recorded as happening to herself. 

About a half hour ago, the hyperdrive had experienced an energy drain. Not a fuel drain – those numbers were fine. It was almost as if the fuel was not converting properly. Eva looked out the viewport and noted the continued movement of stars – just not in hyperspace. Blaster still in her right hand, Eva ran her left hand through her hair as the telemetry readout continued. What would cause this? 

Eva reached up and flipped a few switches to signal a diagnostic of the hyperdrive. If that checked out, they had bigger problems. 

Out of the periphery of her vision, Eva saw a body move into the cockpit unannounced. Her crew knew the rules. 

The safety on the blaster flipped off and the click was enough to make the intruder say her name and lurch back out of the cockpit, eyes wide.

Eva froze in fire position as she realized -- “Fuckin’ Force-forsaken borg. _Bastasi_.” She clicked the safety back on and moved to stand behind the Captain’s chair, staring into the darkness. The only light emanated from Theron Shan’s implants. Eva gripped the headrest of her seat. “I nearly shot you.” Eva spun the chair so she could sit down, hard. 

“It wasn’t great for me either.” Theron reemerged, leaning heavily on the doorway.

The pair stared at each other, the only sound being their heavy breathing. Eva spoke first. “Rule I probably should have mentioned – coordinating with ‘always carry a knife’ and ‘never screw over your Captain,’ always announce yourself when entering the cockpit or her quarters. She is armed.” 

“Thanks for that. I think I’ll take a written copy of the bylaws now that I almost got spaced.” Theron rubbed his eyes. 

Eva tried to will her heart from pumping out of her chest. She ran her eyes over Theron. Shirt, trousers, bare feet. “The hell you doing up anyway?”

Theron ran a hand back through his hair, still mussed from sleep. “Light sleeper. I smelled caf.” She silently stared at him. “I have a problem, I admit.”

Eva turned to look at her dashboard. The diagnostic was back. Nothing. “Kriff.” Eva closed her eyes, swallowed, and took a big breath. “Hyperdrive is going to be down for another half hour. We got pulled out of hyperspace by something.”

“Something?” Theron stood to the right of her chair, edging toward the co-pilot’s seat. 

Eva raised a hand, stopping him, ears listening to the sensors. 

Blip.

Blip.

Blip.

Blip.

Blip.

Blip.

“And here we go,” Eva said, rising to her feet to activate three switches – defectors, anti-concussion, and stasis shields were up. 

As her fingers left the switches, _Virtue’s Thief_ rocked. Now Eva felt herself speed up, slam on an earpiece, activate the ship-wide comm: “Good morning everyone, we’re being shot at.” An alarm started to ring throughout the ship, the lights taking on a red tinge. 

The ship roared to life as the crew’s noises echoed up through the hallways. Eva turned to Theron. “Go get your boots and arm yourself. In case of a boarding party. Caf’s in the galley. And in case you were wondering –” Theron’s eyes focused on her face and she pinned him with her eyes. “This is the reason for the ‘no sleeping naked’ rule.”

“Not as sexy as I thought,” he quipped.

“No.” Eva began to herd him out, knowing she had to get to her own quarters, get her boots and holster on. As Theron broke left, Eva marched right to her quarters. 

**

As expected by Eva and as observed for the first time by Theron, the crew was jolted to life by the alert. Theron flattened himself against the wall as people flew around the interior of the ship, the red blinking lights creating a kaleidoscope of metallic reflection. From the women’s quarters, Akaavi was out and ready first, heading up to the upper turret. Risha, hair not yet done, sprinted across the hallway toward the engine rooms. Close to Theron’s position in the curving pathway of the ship, Corso was still pulling a shirt over his head, dressed only in boxers, as he rushed to reach the cockpit. 

Theron finally managed to make it to medbay where Guss, in his jammies with feet, was firing up all the diagnostic machines. The _Thief_ was rocked by another hit, but Theron could hear the stabilizers kicking in as evasive action was being taken. “Remote fire, lower turrets. I need a body in there. Upper turret, let’s go here.” Eva’s voice was cool, but insistent. There was a rumble beneath Theron’s feet. “We got six – make that five contacts.”

The upper turret finally fired, a great roar of cannon echoing down into the ship. 

“Well, guess you’re getting the full smug life experience, free of charge, Agent Shan.” Guss did not look at him directly as his hands flew over the computers. “Hopefully nobody will be back here.” 

The _Thief_ pitched suddenly – evasive maneuvers. Theron wordlessly rifled through his go bag, grabbed his socks and holsters and suited up. 

At that moment, the upper turret started to fire again, and Bowdaar rushed past the medbay door, assumedly to get to the lower turret. “Remote fire, lateral guns. Risha, what the hell happened to the hyperdrive?” Apparently, the gunner’s compartment was getting its live fire test. 

Risha’s clipped voice replied. “One of the newest toys on the market is a hyperlane speed trap – meant for law enforcement, but utilized mostly by pirates. It can essentially net ships. The only reason we haven’t been swarmed is because we’re ancient – took a lot longer than they thought for us to actually be stopped, so their short-range fighters can’t reach us.”

The lower turret finally went off on its own accord. 

“Anything we can do to speed up this recovery time?”

“Not a thing. Just kill them all so they can’t redeploy it.”

Eva’s comm was open, but instead of her voice, _Snap fizzle._ There were a few moments of silence because the Captain’s voice finally came through. “That sounded expensive. Someone relieve me here. I’m mad now.” There was crackle as Eva started moving within the cockpit. “Corso, get some holo visuals on these Sithspit.”

“You going for the lateral guns?”

“Yeah. Bowie, get up here. Guss, down you go into the turret. Show me what you got. So far, I got one, and Akaavi’s got one.” 

Guss bolted from the room to wait for Bowdaar to emerge. Theron stepped out to investigate, checking behind him to avoid being steamrolled by the Wookiee. For a brief second, he saw Eva tug back a door in the floor of the hallway not far from the cockpit, and then she disappeared. Distantly, he could hear the soles of her boots slide down the ladder. 

Bowdaar finally approached from behind his back. “Can you read a sensor board and count bogeys with that metal in your head?”

Theron realized he’d just been drafted.

**

Eva squirmed to reach the gunner’s lateral firing mechanism. Still a tight fit, but a less flammable one. “All right, you pieces of drekk. Let’s see what this old girl can do.” 

Eva winced as there was a grind of metal as the guns activated and started to pivot. That was expected. Still didn’t like to hear it. 

The lower gun went off again, and Eva’s lips quirked as she heard a distant “Wahooo!” from the bowels of the ship. “Four contacts remain. Guss got one, believe it or not. Captain, got one coming your way.”

She almost didn’t recognize Theron’s voice.

“Now, if I get this one, you all have to step up your game – this gun doesn’t even work right half the time.” Nothing like a bit of competitive antagonism to inspire the crew. 

The fog of war descended upon Eva as she settled into the isolation of the gunner’s compartment. Voices fed her information, but she could only act on what was visible through her viewport. The rest of the ship faded to the background.

As Eva focused on the task at hand, she remembered some of Hadrian’s few pieces of serious advice to her. They revolved around killing people.

Eva let the pirate cross into her frame of vision. 

Now to lead-fire him… keep the arms stable, let the joints bend. 

Force him to turn…Cut back, reduce the angle.

Make him make the mistake.

Be patient.

Take a deep breath in and slowly release as you gently pull on the trigger.

Just like shooting a blaster, little lady.

Keep pressure on him. Make him panic. Make him feel like you’ve got him.

Don’t matter if you do or not yet. Keep him afraid.

 _NOW._

Silent bursts of orange light marked victory for her. 

“That’s two for Cap, one for Akaavi, one for Guss. We got two more,” Corso confirmed the kill.

**

It was over quickly. Six for six. Akaavi ultimately chased the remaining two into each other, with an assist from Eva. 

The battle was over.

Eva’s ears rang as the guns went silent. Corso turned the red alert off. Eva pulled herself off the gunner’s seat and slid along the wall to the viewport ledge that she hid in. The stars from here were peaceful, infinite. She gave herself five minutes to be insignificant.

Finally, she called up through her headset. “Get me a damage report. I have a suspicion they fried the climate controls in the cargo bay. Any injuries? I’m coming up, so watch your step.” 

Six responses of “no” came to her ears. Good.

Hand over hand, legs pushing upward, and she eventually emerged in the hallway not far from the cockpit. She heaved herself up, the adrenaline fading. She shoved the hatch shut, locking it down. She lay on her hallway floor for another minute, staring at the ceiling. This was not a good way to wake up in the morning. She hauled herself to her feet.

“Risha, we good to resume course?” She pressed a hand to her ear as she moved up the hallway to the cockpit, passing by Theron at the sensor screen as she joined Corso and Bowdaar.

“I’d suggest that. Bad idea to dawdle,” came Risha’s response. “I got your report when you want it – nothing we can’t fix ourselves.” 

“Some good news. Get on it whenever we have time and hands.” Eva pulled down the paper she’d tacked up in the visor the previous evening and passed it to Corso. “Get us back on track. It’s 0532 now, so we’ve lost about…what, an hour with these idiots?”

Corso reset the destination. “ETA now is about 0815, rendezvous still set at 0900 – do we need to contact them and change that?” 

Eva turned back to look at Theron. “Can you do your recon in 45 minutes?”

“Not as thoroughly as I would want, but yes. Getting the drop on the Revanites before they leave Rakata Prime is the objective,” Theron replied, not taking his eyes off the sensor screen. “Something you need to see, Captain.”

She stood next to him in the hallway. He had some of the holo stills that Corso had captured during combat. Theron magnified one of the ships and pointed at the symbols on it.

Eva stared at the livery, the colors and symbols that marked the ship. “Don’t recognize it. These aren’t pirates I know.”

Theron’s expression was grim. “This is the Cult of Revan’s own logo.”

That was bad. “So now they fly?”

“They fly,” he confirmed. “And they have ships from both the Empire and the Republic.” 

Eva’s eyes travelled over the stills before looking up at Theron, both their faces reflecting the blue and green lights of the sensor reader. She whispered, “Random hit and run to get another ship and whatever goods are onboard? Or are they expecting us?”

“Unknown,” he whispered back. They shared a worried gaze before each looked at the images one last time. Eva palmed the screen off, face now haggard. 

Bowie called from the cockpit. “Almost 0600 – more caf?” 

Eva called back, “Yeah. Go ahead for everyone else.” Before she forgot, Eva reached into her vest and pulled a printout, folded into four, from her interior vest pocket. “Theron, since you asked. House rules.” She held it between her first and second fingers. Eyes on her, he took it and unfolded it. She watched him start to read.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Eva said, “I’m going to go to my quarters and have a heart attack.” 

She was down the hall and locked in her quarters before he was able to respond to the first rule.

_Rule #1: The Captain’s responsibility is to the ship. The ship is the crew, and the crew is the ship. The captain is to save the ship at any cost, including her own._

**

After a visit to the fresher and before returning to the galley to grab some caf, Theron had read through her rules. A number of stories needed to be told. He had some further appreciation for the operation she ran professionally and personally. Admittedly, he hadn’t read the book she’d loaned him. 

One of the benefits of implants was that Theron could put aside the data pad and still read it inside his head. He set a timer to turn the book page every so often so that it appeared that he was reading the book, when in actuality, he was reading something more useful to his current operation. This was a useful ploy while undercover or trying to observe marks…or trying not to offend a well-meaning host. 

Theron still had work to do, and skypirate novels were not necessary long-term knowledge, as Trant had put it.

Bowdaar poured him a cup as Theron entered the galley. Akaavi sat sipping her mug as well. The others had gone back to bed, Risha urged to do so by Bowdaar; she was the one going out with the Captain today, and Theron had overheard the Wookiee’s fussing in the hallway. Unusually, C2 was in the galley as well today – but then again, Theron had only been on the _Thief_ once previously. Maybe it wasn’t “unusually.” 

At any rate, the steward droid was taking inventory in the galley and occasionally conferring with the Wookiee. There were a few words exchanged. Theron watched the droid carefully. Its programming had been changed from the standard Hollis assignations. It wasn’t obnoxiously trying to make him or anyone else comfortable, nor was it grovelling. Theron remembered bumping into it that one of mornings he had spent on _Thief_ previously, before he had caf with Eva. The droid had simply apologized and asked if he needed anything. Then Theron never saw or heard from the droid again on that visit.

Come to think of it, he had seen very little of C2-N2 during the Imperial Stock Exchange incident. One would have thought it would have dogged Eva for the injury if nothing else. It was silent. It was irregular behaviour for such a droid.

Theron finished his mug. As he placed it down on the bar, Bowdaar reached for the caf carafe. He raised it silently, and Theron nodded for a refill. He looked over at the droid again as it finished up its duties. “Excuse me for saying so, but you are one of the most quiet droids I’ve ever met.”

C2 looked at Theron, eyes softly glowing. “Is that acceptable?”

“Yes. Just different.”

“Master reprogrammed me early on to be less verbose than other Hollis-model steward droids. I instigate conversation with her alone unless there is a vital matter, as set by her parameters,” C2 explained. “Example: collision with you in the hallway prompts an apology. Conference with Bowdaar to replenish supplies. Et cetera.” 

Akaavi spoke up. “The Captain is excellent with droids, both as someone who interfaces with them and utilizes them for practical purposes.” 

“Not surprised. My astromech likes her a lot.” Theron sipped his caf. “Are you the ship’s original droid?”

C2 paused. “No. I am not. I came into the Captain’s service as a result of an interloper hijacking her ship and needing a spare hand.”

“Skavak,” Akaavi filled in. “Piece of Drekk that Risha ran with to try to get her father’s fortune prior to the Captain.”

“He gassed me. She shot him. It worked out,” Bowdaar summed it up. “She burned her old bed because he’d stayed in it while he had possession of her ship. She kept the droid though. C2 is fine for a metal man.” 

“Thank you, Bowdaar.” C2 stood in the galley, politely, waiting to see if Theron had further questions. Theron gave C2 a nod, and the droid left the galley. 

Theron didn’t see the ship’s captain until they were entering the orbit of Rakata Prime. Now she was fully dressed for the day, hair up and out of the way. The blaster was holstered. That was an improvement on this morning, in Theron’s experience. Theron intercepted her as she walked back toward the engines, where Risha was waiting for her. “Ship’s sensors – can I use them to speed up the process?”

“Planetside? Yeah, just tell Corso what you need to track – life forms, radiation, electromagnetic fields, whatever.” She looked in the general direction of the sensor board. “Just be mindful that they’re not fool-proof – they’re old like the rest of the ship -- and these Revanites have more weird tech and toys than I want to think about.”

Theron nodded. “Eyes are the best intel sometimes. How was your heart attack?”

“Pretty good. Crew is going to be _very_ cautious on their extracurricular today.” Eva’s dark eyes were on him, good-humored, but also serious. “I wouldn’t want to be in orbit in case the Revanites come looking for their mark. The two ships stay separated, one can help the other.” 

Theron understood. 

Soon after, Theron was down the gangplank on Rakata Prime. He had approximately 47 minutes to confirm his intel and update his data prior to his rendezvous with Lana and Jakarro. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spot the Pulp Fiction reference.
> 
> And after some consideration, I'll be posting at the rules of the Thief on AO3 and tumblr as worldbuilding tools.


	5. Smugglers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jakarro violates a long-held principle of smugglers and ships. Captain and crew of Virtue's Thief must rectify this. Theron and Lana suffer.

Theron slid down a sand dune as he saw a second unregistered XS Stock Light ship land on Rakata Prime. Time to head back. 

By the time he reached the water’s edge, only Lana Beniko stood outside of the ships, arms crossed. “What, didn’t get any morning caf from Jakarro?” Theron called out to her as he walked up the beach. 

“That, and the smugglers have gone on tours of each other’s ships. I won’t even attempt to try to lure them back down.” Lana stood in the shadow of Jakarro’s XS, trying to avoid any contact with the sun. 

Theron grinned as he heard C2-D4 exclaim, “This belongs in a museum!”

Theron shouted up into the _Thief._ “Jakarro, heading over to your ship. Need to see her controls.”

“Fine. What the kriff is wrong with that little smuggler? Why is this so complicated?” Apparently, Jakarro had found the cockpit of _Virtue’s Thief._ “Who the hell has the patience for this?”

Theron strode up the gangplank of Jakarro’s XS, highly amused at the chatter he could still hear from Eva’s XS. As Theron entered the ship proper, he realized that the ship comm systems were open to each other. “I have patience for exactly three things, Jakarro. Two of those things are suitable for mixed company: pazaak and my ship. What you’re looking at is the original control system for the XS Stock Light Freighter. And yes, D4, it does belong in a museum.”

“How long does it even take to learn this crap?” Jakarro asked.

“I require 1500 hours.”

Theron pitched his ears and tried to follow her voice in the ship even as it bounced through the comm lines. The ship was laid out just like hers, so he headed toward the cockpit.

“Such a waste of time.”

“1500 hours is exactly what any commercial passenger pilot has to clock – I just require it so that my ship remains my ship.”

“Other than you, who would do that?”

“Risha and Corso. Bowdaar is about to clock hour 1500 sometime in the next two months.” 

Jakarro sounded as if he was going to say something else, but he grumbled to a halt. D4 let loose a tiny gasp. Apparently, Bowdaar had given some indication that no other mean words were going to come out. 

Theron called ahead of him as he entered the hall. “It’s me.”

Eva stuck her head outside of the cockpit. “Not my cockpit, so I don’t intend on protecting it with my life. But good progress, Theron.” She went back inside and seemed to disappear toward the copilot’s seat. “Jakarro, is anything on your ship original?”

“I don’t know. It breaks, it gets replaced.” 

Theron entered the cockpit and nearly burst into laughter at the distraught expression on Eva’s face. “I’m dying inside. What’s her name?”

“It’s an unregistered freighter. It is not required to have a name,” D4 answered.

“Yeah, but what do you guys call it?”

“The ship.”

Eva looked at the comm speaker as if it had sprouted fangs. “That’s bad luck. You can’t not name the ship. It’s not yours unless you name it.”

Now Theron did guffaw at her evident distress over being on a ship without a name. “Not your ship. Not your problem.” 

Jakarro huffed. “You said it, spy.”

Theron fixed his attention on the pilot’s seat. “This is my problem.”

He sat down and ran his hands along the modified boards. Yeah, this was like his shuttle. He had this. “Jakarro, what’s your emergency procedure in case power to the automated controls fail?”

“Isn’t that what the escape pod is for?” came D4’s voice.

Theron pulled a face. “Preferably not.” He looked over toward Eva. Silently, she reached over the co-pilot’s side and flipped open a small switch box. 

As she pulled the fuse and cut power to the controls, Theron found himself being pushed back in the pilot’s seat as the ship produced manual controls from underneath the main control board. He flatly stared as control yokes emerged, one for the pilot and one for the co-pilot. “You know you have manual controls here, right, Jakarro?”

“Never seen them.” 

Theron felt frustration bubble up. He cursed in High Gamorrese. 

Now it was Eva’s turn to crow. “Some pilots consider their ships tools to be used, abused, and discarded as needs be. Others consider their ships to be extensions of themselves. We know where Jakarro and I fall.” 

Theron looked up at her, disgruntled. “Enlighten me. You have seven minutes.”

“I’d rather do something else in seven minutes, but I’ve worked to tighter frames.” Theron rolled his eyes as she hopped into the co-pilot’s seat. He swore he heard D4 grumble through the open comms, as well as a few giggles from the Captain’s crew. 

But as requested, she gave him a fast and dirty summary of manual controls of an XS Stock Light freighter. With agile hands and long fingers, Eva used the co-pilot’s yoke to demonstrate how to calibrate the controls, transfer control over to the co-pilot and back again, chart a basic course, jump to hyperspace, and then drop out. “To be frank, if you need to do anything more complicated on manual, you’d be better off to wait until one of my crew is available to walk through it. If you can stop the ship from moving, the _Thief_ can dock and we can bring personnel over if needed.” 

With 90 seconds to spare, she restored power to the controls. The manual yokes receded. “You know these?”

“Reasonably well. I can take off, chart a course, go to hyperspace, exit hyperspace, and land.” Theron briefly went through the motions, feeling her watchful gaze upon him. He consulted the chrono. “30 seconds.”

“Done on time.” Eva liked punctuality. She rose from her seat in the co-pilot’s chair and began to make her way out of the cockpit. She rested a hand on Theron’s shoulder as she passed, pausing to speak, “Guss, I need to do a check of vital water systems on _Virtue’s Thief._ Can you open the hatch for me and give me a rundown when I get back onboard? I need to make it fast.” 

“But – right.” Guss seemed to catch onto something. Eva cut the comms between the two ships. 

“See you outside.” Just like that, Eva was off like a shot out of the ship. Theron fixed a look at Eva’s retreating back, turning in the pilot’s seat to watch her go. What was that about? 

**

Eva darted up her gangplank and flung open the door, closing it tightly behind her. Eva moved swiftly through the ship, only putting on the brakes to stick her head into the women’s quarters. “Risha you ready to go?” 

The other brunette secured her rifle to her shoulder. “Medpacks ready. What’s this about vital water systems? Why do you need to look at the liquor cabinet?”

Eva motioned for Risha to follow her and then veered into the galley. “Guss, any champagne left?” 

Only the Mon Cal’s back half was visible as he was considerably far into the liquor cabinet. “Nope. Never too early to fall off the back of a speeder, right, Captain?”

“I wish. Jakarro hasn’t named his ship, which tells me he never christened it either.” 

Guss banged his head on the inside of the cabinet as he startled. “Oh, that’s asking to get shot at.” 

Risha make a face. “You’d never get me on that ship – it’s a magnet for bad fortunes.” 

“And we’re parked right next to it, plus her captain’s been on board. We have to fix this.” Eva didn’t believe in Force mumbo jumbo, but luck was as contagious as the Bandonian plague, for good or bad. 

Guss grumbled at the bump on his head but continued to rifle through the cabinet. “Uh…it has to be unopened, right?”

“Yeah.” Eva leaned on the counter and peered down and into the liquor cabinet. “What _didn’t_ we drink for the Imp Stock Market?”

“Corso and I hid the unopened Crème d’Infame, if that’s what you’re asking,” Guss replied, clinking a few bottles out of the way.

“That’s too good for Jakarro anyway.” Risha crossed her arms. “Do we have any scotch?”

Guss was digging deep back into the cupboard at this point, the only thing visible being his boots. There was a quiet “bang” as he bumped his head again. “This liquor cabinet needs a helmet with one of those lights, boss. It’s like spelunking.” However, he soon emerged with a long-forgotten bottle of scotch. “This should do it.” 

Eva grabbed the neck of the bottle to examine it. “Yeah, should do. You and Bowdaar go up through the roof hatch. Smash the bottle, announce that you’re christening it as whatever name you want, then get the hell back under deck before Jakarro takes a shot at you with his bowcaster.”

Guss’s shoulders sagged. “Captain, why do I have to get shot at today? Isn’t it Corso’s turn to get shot at?” 

Eva handed the scotch back to him. “Corso is driving, and Akaavi’s going on EVA once you get to the starship graveyard. Unless _you_ want to go float in space with Akaavi in charge of your air supply and ability to get back on the ship.”

Guss stared at her. “You’re a mean woman, Captain.”

**

Theron pointedly looked at his chrono as Eva and Risha finally walked down the gangplank. They were uncharacteristically late. Theron had a suspicion that something was amiss, even before they went off to go graverobbing – “researching.”

Jakarro seemed to miss this potential. “At last! Now that you’re here, vengeance can be ours.”

Eva stood at ease. “Do we have a plan ready?” 

D4 hesitated. “I don’t know if it’s fair to describe it as a plan necessarily…”

“Quiet droid,” Jakarro griped, poking the droid in the optical sensor. 

Theron held his temper. This was the last mission he had to get through with the bickering duo. “I’ve done a bit of scouting. The Revanites are camped it he Temple of the Ancients, an old ruin nearby.” Theron offered Eva a pair of macrobinoculars and gestured out toward the tall building. 

Eva took them and studied the image within. “Few clicks out. Why not drop on top?”

“Collateral damage. Even if we capture the ringleaders here, I have no doubt the rest of their troops have other means of getting off planet. We need to weaken them as much as possible so that any stragglers are manageable for the Republic or the Empire, however that will be negotiated.” Theron looked over at Lana, who nodded. Some sort of détente would have to be reached, given the galactic scale of the conspiracy. Eva passed the macrobinoculars off to Risha, a word muttered in passing. 

A noise on top of _Virtue’s Thief_ caught Theron’s attention. He was hypersensitive to unexpected noises due to the implants anyway, but working with smugglers was making him extra twitchy. Theron shifted his weight, as if to crane his neck to look at the Temple. This allowed him to note, out of the corner of his eye, Bowdaar and Guss (of course) on the roof of the _Thief_ , attempting to make their way over to Jakarro’s ship. 

Why was there an _unopened_ bottle of scotch involved? An opened bottle of scotch should have been a pre-requisite for whatever bizarre thing they were doing.

Lana, who had remained still and silent to this point, made a small noise in her throat that told Theron she was fully aware of the antics on the top of the ship. Eva stubbornly had her eyes fixed on the Temple of the Ancients, not even looking at the roof. 

Guss appeared to be trying to reach out to the other ship with the bottle, but his arms weren’t long enough. Bowdaar took the bottle from him and tried to line up a swing. No, still not far enough. Bowdaar passed the scotch back to Guss, and the Mon Calamari and the Wookiee started to consult about their problem on the top of the ship. 

If Theron had sprung for the laser implant, he could have burned a hole in the side of Eva’s head with his glare. As long as they were quiet, they could get through this briefing. “We’ve gotten this far without being detected – it’s time for you to go in and make some noise.”

As if on cue, Guss squawked indignantly. Theron glowered at Eva and then redirected his attention up to the top of the _Thief_. 

Apparently, Bowdaar’s solution, without giving Guss any notice, was to pick up Guss by the ankles and swing him at Jakarro’s ship, hoping to break the bottle that way. He missed on the first swing.

“What the hell are you doing to my ship?” Jakarro roared.

“Christening it. The hell you doing flying around with it unnamed?” Eva scolded him. 

Bowdaar wound up for a second attempt at hitting Jakarro’s ship. Guss shrieked, “Hit it with the scotch, not me, you fuzzball!” Bowdaar missed on all counts. 

Risha shoved the macrobinoculars back at Theron. “How hard can this possibly be? Break the bottle, say the name!” 

“Surely you can’t be so simple-minded to believe in spacer legends?” D4 snidely asked.

Risha gave the dismantled droid a once over. “Yeah, you look really lucky there, D4.” 

As the droid sputtered, insulted, Jakarro spun to shake a claw at Eva. “You tell them to leave my ship alone! It’s not yours and it doesn’t need any of your strange little magicks!”

Lana was shell-shocked at this point. Oh, she had missed all the other smuggler briefings and only had brief exposure to Guss previously. Theron took some pleasure in knowing this was her smuggler baptism-by-fire. 

Possibly literally, if there was an open flame anywhere near that scotch when they finally broke the bottle. 

If they weren’t disrupting _his briefing_ , Theron might have had a good laugh. But it was _his briefing._

Bowdaar yelled from the top of the ship. “Hey, keep your distance. I’ll break this ship, then I’ll break you if you touch her!” He took another swing at the ship, Guss screaming the entire time. “Shut up, Fishman, you need to hit the ship – stop flinching!” 

Eva was half the size of Jakarro, who towered even over Bowdaar. That didn’t seem to discourage her from jabbing him right in the chest, avoiding D4’s head. “Luck spreads, and I’m not letting whatever misfortune you’ve collected end up on _Virtue’s Thief_.”

Jakarro was caught off-guard by the jab and stumbled backwards in shock before going toe-to-toe with her, roaring. “You little space harpy, I don’t want my ship christened! You’d steal a baby to get it baptized against its parents’ will, you zealot.”

Eva scoffed. “Yeah, like the Sith and Jedi do much different – at least you get to keep your ship.” 

Lana’s eyes narrowed at that, but she was prudent enough _not_ to get between the two smugglers. “Throwing down with a full-grown Wookiee. Not bad for a tiny scrap of humanity, right, Lana?” Theron murmured in the Sith’s ear. 

Lana turned a glare that was near murderous on Theron. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She scanned his face, then accused him: “Did you know that this was going to happen?”

“It was always a possibility.”

Eva looked over her shoulder. She’d heard everything. Theron couldn’t gauge her reaction, because, in the same moment, finally, Bowdaar smashed Guss into the side of Jakarro’s ship. The scotch bottle burst into large shards, the dark liquid streaming down the side of the ship. Eva wheeled around. “Guss broke the bottle, he has to name it!”

Bowdaar finished the swing and set Guss down on top of the _Thief_ , dropping his ankles. He stared at his crewmate for a moment before yelling down, “I think I gave him a concussion.”

“Get him to say it anyway!” Risha yelled up.

Eva stalked over to the edge of the ship. “Guss, this is your Captain speaking. Name the goddamn ship!”

Guss sat up, head wobbling in a vague circle. “I dub thee ---- ” 

Everyone leaned in for this one.

Guss listed starboard. “ _The Warthog_!” He toppled over onto his side, and Bowdaar grabbed him by the arm so he didn’t flop off the side of the ship. 

There was a moment of silence before Jakarro howled, “I don’t want it named _The Warthog_!” 

“Then rechristen it yourself. I already spent one bottle of scotch on you,” Eva snapped. “Anyway, it’s now a lucky ship. I’m happy.”

D4’s eyes blinked. “It does have a ring to it.”

At this point, Jakarro threw up his hands. “Crazy little smuggler thing, always gets her way.”

Theron knew his translator was being highly selective in the words it chose, since Eva smirked at Jakarro. Theron looked over Lana, who was somewhere between traumatized and amused. 

He shook his head and pressed forward with _his briefing._ “So do we have the smuggler impulses out of our system now?” Theron asked, crossly. Gods, when did _he_ become the adult in the room? 

Eva and Risha went back to their starting positions. Then they smiled politely in unison, as if nothing had happened. Bowdaar dragged Guss across to the roof hatch and the pair disappeared below decks. Jakarro grunted.

“As I was saying, the Revanites appear not to be aware of our presence here on Rakata Prime. Eva and Risha will work their way toward the Temple and hopefully intercept Arkous and Darok before they have a chance to leave the planet.” Theron raised his chin toward Jakarro.

“Since you are not quite as … visually fearsome as the mighty Jakarro,” the Wookiee carefully amended his planned statement, “I will act as diversion, drawing the enemy away while you approach the Temple.”

D4 startled to life, eyes flashing, “What? This isn’t what we discussed! It’s suicide! I demand that you detach me this instant!”

Jakarro gave the droid’s head another vicious jab, “You will join the rest of your body soon enough if you won’t be silent!”

Risha cut in, “At least you know the ship is safe now, so it might not be a bad idea.”

If the droid head could have emoted nonverbally, Theron expected it would have been used here. Instead, all that came out was a grumbling noise. 

“What kind of security do the Revanites have?” asked Eva. She had decided to meander back to business, apparently.

Lana finally ventured to speak. “They’ve convinced some of the local Rakatan tribes to patrol the areas around the temple for them. A truly barbaric lot. The last 25,000 years have been years of regression for them, for the most part – they can’t even use the technology their ancestors created.”

“Which is probably a good thing, given what we’ve seen.,” Theron interjected. “The Revanites themselves are guarding the temple grounds. They’re fully armed and paranoid.”

“I resemble that remark,” Eva said in good humor. Risha cracked a smile at that, and even Theron had to grin slightly at that after his wake-up that morning. 

The other members of the group were far less enthusiastic. “Wonderful,” D4 flatly stated.

Theron continued, “We’ll be keeping an eye on things from the ship –”

Eva and Risha looked at him expectantly, like two very smug cats. No wonder Risha was Eva’s double as the Voidhound. They were in tune with each other, even out of costume. 

Theron restarted his sentence, “We’ll be keeping an eye on things from _The Warthog_.” He sighed. “You two are going to enjoy that far too much during this mission.”

“Yeah,” the girls replied. 

Whatever. “As long as we all stay sharp, we’ll get this conspiracy shut down permanently. That will likely come with a significant pay packet from both sides.”

Risha’s eyes sparked. “Let’s cause some mayhem, then.” Eva and Risha grabbed their gear from the bottom of the _Thief’s_ gangplank. 

Lana ended the briefing, “May the Force serve you well.” 

Given that both smugglers were not Force users, they didn’t really acknowledge the parting as anything special. Eva gave Jakarro, Lana, and Theron a wave and then the pair activated their stealth belts and poofed into thin air.

“I can’t believed she baptized my ship by force. Who does that?” Jakarro stared incredulously and then stomped off in the opposite direction of the Temple.

Lana and Theron stepped back from the ships as the _Thief_ readied to take off, sending a silent signal to Theron’s implants.

As Corso took off and began the _Thief’s_ steady ascent, Lana swallowed and seemed to take a minute to process the entire briefing. “Is it always like this?”

“With more than one smuggler in close proximity?”

“Yes.” Lana looked at him with utter trepidation and dread.

“More or less.”

Theron thought Lana’s soul had departed, given the magnitude of the sigh that issued forth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given all the crazy stuff the Smuggler does in canon (drug smuggling, having sex before being eaten by a black hole, gun running -- and that's just Chapter 1), forcibly baptizing a ship is relatively tame and consistent with gambler cosmology. One of the things I love about the smugs and bounty hunters is that they say and do things that would just be crack!fic for other classes. (And yes, I can see the BH ordering Blizz to deal with this problem).
> 
> And yes, Eva does have some anti-Force user attitudes. Yes, it does put her in conflict with other characters, including Corso, Lana, and Theron. It's a topic of on-going conversation/plot development.


	6. Adventures in Zombieland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eva and Rish wade through the Revanite Temple and discuss the betting pools currently running on the Thief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly early post this week before the holiday rush in the United States. Stay safe.

Even with the presence of a rancor and agitated tribespeople, the mission for Eva and Risha was unremarkable until they closed in upon the temple. Theron and Lana were up in _The Warthog_ , their eyes in the sky. “Sensors are showing a lot of movement in the temple. The Revanites are mustering their defenses. Darok and Arkous are in there somewhere- just keep moving,” Theron said over the comm to the pair.

Eva listened carefully to Risha’s movements behind her. “How you doing, Risha?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” she asked in return.

Eva hummed, then stopped. “Down behind the steps. I see something.” Eva stopped in place and pulled out her own pair of macrobinoculars. The noise behind her ceased as well, and she imagined Risha, invisible, crouched in the grass behind her. “Confirm to me what we’re seeing.”

“That’s a lightsaber. Two. Three. Six. They’re sparring. Light and Dark siders.” 

Eva mumbled across the distance, “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.” Eva sent up a hail to _The Warthog_. “Theron, we have Sith _and Jedi_.”

There was silence from above. Arkous was already known to be a Revanite asset, likely along with other Sith friends, but there hadn’t been any indication that the Revanites had spread beyond Pub military. Theron finally offered an assessment after nearly a minute. “That’s bad.”

“Any advice?” Eva took the macrobinoculars away from her eyes as she tried to reposition herself. “I’ve dealt with two or three at a time, but six is a no no.”

“Don’t die?” was all he could offer. Eva could tell from his voice that he was surprised by this development. 

“Lana, insight?” Eva asked. She crawled on her belly to the edge of the temple grounds, trying to get a better visual of how they were armed, besides the obvious.

The clipped Imperial tones came through Eva’s ear comm. “Blaster fire is fencing practice for them. I would attempt a complete stealth operation or utilize the environment to your advantage.”

“Thanks.” Eva considered the problem in front of her. “Corso’s going to be sore about the saints joining the cult.”

Risha scoffed. “Jedi are not incorruptible; it’s why there’s a constant terror of falling to the Dark side, not to mention reluctance admitting potentially corrupting forces.”

Eva cast a look back, even though she couldn’t see her companion. “Sumalee?”

“Yeah. She and Shariss had a rough time going straight. Enough that I didn’t.” Risha’s tone indicated the topic wasn’t up for discussion.

“Shariss Kartur?” Theron’s voice crackled over the comm.

“Yes.” Eva could hear Risha closing up behind her, not wanting to engage her future target on the topic of past friends. 

Eva chimed in gaily, “No worries here, Risha. I’ve had unrepentant fun and have no intent of changing. So let’s blow up some hand-waving charlatans.” With no further prelude, Eva lobbed a concussion grenade into the temple grounds to disorient and distract the sparring figures, enabling both the two women to sneak past them into the temple complex.

The comm was cut due to the blast, and Risha crept up close to her friend. “I can always count on you to help avoid a serious conversation.”

Eva furrowed her brow. “Getting chummy over mutual friends while attempting to infiltrate a cult temple populated with zombies is not the time or place.”

“Not to mention he’s your mark.”

Eva checked to make sure the comm link to _The Warthog_ was still shut. Yup. “He’s my friend.”

Eva almost heard Risha’s neck crack as she imagined her head whipping to face the source of her unseen voice. “That’s different.”

“Tell me about it. Didn’t mean to start that conversation, so I finished it.”

“So it’s done. Minus the obvious favor you now owe me,” Risha quipped, smarmy. 

Eva smirked. “Let me guess. Betting pool?”

“You know it. Best way to kill time while sneaking.”

Eva and Risha crept through the external aspect of the temple complex, whispers on the wind and plantlife trampled underfoot the only signs of their passing through. 

Eva stepped carefully. “Right. Let’s be efficient. Pool rundown. We have the baby pool for us three girls.”

“Not relevant this month, at least.”

“We have each of our death pools.”

“Akaavi almost won yours, by the way.”

“I’ll be mindful of that going forward. We have the paternity suit pool for Guss and Corso.”

“Mostly Corso and again, not relevant.”

“We have the Lana and Bowdaar pool.”

“Remind me of where we stand?”

“I’m going to have to introduce that boy to ‘the pretty blonde lady’ directly if he’s ever going to talk to her. You think they’re going to meet for drinks in down time, under their own volition. Corso thinks they’re going to have a comm by accident. Akaavi thinks nothing will ever happen. Guss thinks it’s going to happen like in the skin flicks, the freak. C2 computes that the odds to be that Lana and Bowdaar will meet on a mission – as in, he accompanies me unnecessarily and uninvited, taking the initiative.”

Risha and Eva reached a patch of trees and sat tight for a minute as a patrol went by. There was a brief shifting of fabric. “Check that the comm lines are closed. I don’t want any proprietary information getting back to any concerned parties,” Risha requested in brisk tone.

Eva snorted as she checked her comm. “We’re still clear.”

“Inside track on your hookup with Spy Guy?” 

Eva knew that one was coming. “In theory, it’s pending the end of this op. Whenever that is.”

Risha was momentarily quiet. “And what does ‘it’ consist of?”

Eva made a face. “Seriously, is this all you guys talk about when I’m not around?”

“There are a lot of cold lonely nights on ship, and you two are currently more entertaining than holo dramas,” Risha leered.

Eva huffed in dismay. “If I told you I have no idea, would you believe me?”

Risha made a frustrated noise. “Yes, especially after your friend comment. And the ballast you mentioned. That changes the game to something I haven’t seen.”

Eva hadn’t even been friends with her ex before they were a thing. 

Risha complained, “You’ve made this bet thing more complicated, you know.”

“Keeps it interesting.” 

“Keeps me from collecting.” 

A light flashed on both their comms. “We’ll have to pick this up later,” Eva said, happy to have the conversation end. “What’s up, _Warthog?_ ”

There was a beat of silence before a long, exasperated sigh. “I can _hear_ you two grinning from here. Anyway. Based upon your telemetry, you should see a temple entrance in front of you. Can you visualize it?”

“Yes,” Eva answered crisply, betraying none of the previous topic matter.

“Get in and shut the door behind you -- I need you to look for a control console and open a channel there. I’ll be able to slice into their systems remotely,” Theron requested. “We need to get a fix on the progress of the cyborgs here and what facilities and tools that Darok and Arkous have.”

“Ready? On three.” Eva counted off and on what would have been zero, she and Risha crossed from their cover to the temple entrance. 

Eva crammed herself into a corner by the doorframe and palmed the close mechanism. As the temple entrance closed behind her, her stealth generator crackled, and she became visible to the world around them. “Stay stealthed and just watch my back here, Rish.” Eva looked up and down the corridor, trying to find a control console of some sort. 

“We might have to go further in, Captain,” came Risha’s disembodied voice. 

Eva nodded, now that she was visible. She went to reactivate her stealth generator, and –

Risha burst out laughing as Eva let fly some choice expletives, finishing with, “ _Baay Shfat_.”

“Uhhh…everything ok down there?” Theron sounded distinctly uncomfortable – he seemed to understand Huttese at least well enough to know precisely how dirty that was.

“Stealth generator just shocked me. That’s out of commission now.” Eva made a face as the metallic taste of electrocution overwhelmed her, and Risha continued to cackle at her misfortune. “Yeah, yeah, let’s get moving. Need to get this taste out of my mouth.” Eva spat, then went for her pack to fish out something – anything – to try to mask the taste as she walked down the hall, Risha just ahead of her to scout. 

“Firsthand experience, there’s nothing you can do.” Somehow, Theron electrocuting himself was not at all surprising to Eva. 

“Mmmmhmmm.” Eva took a quick drink of water as Risha left small bootprints in the dust ahead of her.

Risha made it to the next juncture in the hallway and then stopped. “Console here.” 

Without warning, Risha’s stealth generator spluttered out as well. “As funny as this would be for me, don’t touch that.” Eva checked to make sure her wrist comm wasn’t doing anything weird before touching it. “Risha’s stealth just gave out too, no warning. What are the electromagnetic fields looking like in here?”

The only response was a low whistle from Theron.

“Right, enough said.” Eva shoved her water back into her pack as she approached Risha and pulled out her omnitool. She set the small device to work on the console and stepped back. “Please don’t blow up.” 

Silence ensued as the wait began.

The seconds ticked by and the tension mounted. 

Eva couldn’t take it and broke it. “Hi, Lana, how’d you like this morning’s briefing?” Eva wasn’t above teasing the Sith. 

“More colorful than most Imperials would tolerate, but it was refreshing in its own way.”

“Like an electric shock,” Eva supplied. A polite chuckle came over the comm lines.

The omnitool took another 90 seconds to slice neatly through everything without electrocuting anyone. 

Lana notified them when the job was complete. “Excellent work. Theron is slicing into the facility’s structural plans now.”

Theron soon cut in, however. “It’s not looking great. Your only option is to pass through the conscription center, dead ahead. That is the origin of all this crazy electromagnetic energy, by the way.”

There was a shuffle as there was movement around _The Warthog’_ s cockpit. “The cyborgs ahead are in some kind of ‘standby’ mode. They’ll activate as soon as you enter the room – be ready for a fight,” Lana warned them, apparently reading over Theron’s shoulder or finding some other data source. 

Eva wasn’t particularly concerned with the source at the moment. “How many?” She carefully leaned around the console to look into the room before her. She could see dark stasis tubes before her and lab equipment, but the lights were still dim. She imagined that once she crossed the threshold of the door, awful things would come to life. Eva withdrew back to the safety of the console’s corner. 

An irritated growl came out of Theron’s throat. “They’re packed in tightly and the electromagnetic readings are distorting any attempt to get individual lifeform readings.” Another few moments of Theron’s hands running over the modified boards ensued. “Blasted sensors… I’m wondering if the Revanites have some sort of scrambler already activated. It might be messing up the planetary readings and our ability to track any newcomers. Lana, could you do a quick perimeter check? I can’t tell if these contacts are real or not.” 

“Right away.” The heavy boots of the Sith walked out of the cockpit. 

Communications were cut between _The Warthog_ and the two women on the ground. Eva and Risha exchanged a concerned a look as they waited for further instruction. Risha leaned back against the wall by the console, closing her eyes for a moment. Eva wasn’t going to walk in there until told. Finally, there was a small click and Theron spoke softly in her ear. “Eva, you there?” A quick glance to Risha revealed that the other woman wasn’t included in on the conversation. 

“Yes.” Eva turned to face the console, keeping her voice low. 

“All right, we don’t have much time. We can’t risk any of the tech in that conscription center falling into Imperial hands. Overload the console.” 

Eva let a lone eyebrow rise as she looked at the console, then another cautious look toward Risha. “You don’t trust Lana not to come back here with a crew?”

“It’s about risk, not trust – you said that,” Theron said lightly. “Overloading the console will fry everything inside and kill the cyborgs before they have a chance to wake up. No fighting, keeps you and Risha nice and safe.”

Silver as his tongue was, Eva knew that wasn’t the only reason. “You didn’t send Lana out of the cockpit because you were worried about our safety.”

Theron sharply replied, “You know I serve the Republic and Republic interests. If it happens to coincide with the fastest and least risky way of getting you out of there, then so be it.”

Eva figured as much. “No argument from me – I know I get paid through an SIS slush fund, not an Imp one.” Eva detached her omnitool, then used the opened interface to force a series of critical errors that cascaded down into the capacitors. “Overloading it now.” 

There was a satisfying crackle and spark, then a bolt from within the conscription center. Risha’s startled out of her break, staring at Eva. At the same moment, Lana returned to the cockpit, and Theron reopened the comm so all four of them were looped in. “What was that? Is everything all right?”

Theron answered her, simply, “We found a shortcut. Anything out there?” He could run a con, if he had to… if he wasn’t so self-satisfied. 

Lana sounded as if she picked up on …something. “No, nothing. Jakarro’s sensors clearly need a bit of adjustment. We wouldn’t want to be misled again.” Lana knew something was amiss, and Eva held her tongue. She liked getting paid. 

Theron affirmed, “Definitely not.” Then, to Eva: “Go ahead and keep moving. We’ll stay in contact.” 

The comm was cut, and Risha cleared her throat. “I’m guessing you and our Republic employer had a discussion?”

“Yes.” Eva gave Risha a knowing look. “Faster, safer, and assured destruction.”

Risha gave a slow nod as she crept past Eva and around the corner into the room. “Well, you’ve done your job. This place is trashed. Let’s keep moving.”

Eva and Risha cautiously padded though the remains of the conscription center. They dare not run, lest something not quite dead hear the clatter of footsteps. The broken stasis tubes gave off a medical smell – of saline and disinfectant and chemical treatments. Now, as the bodies lay unmoving, crumpled in upon themselves, the smells of death began to creep in around the edges. Eva opened her mouth to breathe through, eying the remains as she passed. The eerie stillness set her on edge.

The comm crackled to life as they were three-quarters of the way through the room, and despite themselves, both Risha and Eva jumped. Theron rolled on, unconcerned and unaware of their fright. “We’re seeing movement on the temple roof – might be Darok and Arkous trying to make an escape.” A few seconds of silence as other sensors were consulted. “Looks like they’ve got a shuttle – we can shoot it down if we have to, but I’d rather take them in for questioning if you can. Hurry.”

“I copy. Can you hail the _Thief_ and ask Corso to bring her around? Sounds like we’re nearly done here.” Eva tried to will her heart to slow down, just a bit. 

“Can do,” Theron’s businesslike tone replied before the line was silenced again. 

**

The large door to the roof was locked. Eva set up her omnitool. A familiar voice rang out in the eerie silence. “Wait for us!”

Eva and Risha turned to see Jakarro loping after them. “You’re going to confront the men who betrayed us! We will spill their blood together!”

The two girls hushed him, simultaneously pressing a finger to their lips. “That’s creepy,” D4 observed.

Risha gave Eva a look “I think we’ve perfected the act.” She scrunched up her face. “Now I’m wondering whether you became more like me or, horrifyingly, I’ve become more like you.”

Eva crooked a smile at her. “That’ll keep you up nights.” Then she threw back her head and theatrically cackled, in a muted voice.

Risha scoffed in disgust, and Jakarro kept his distance as the omnitool completed its work and the door popped open. 

The three sentients and the droid were now on the roof of the temple, which appeared to have its own open-air arena: a circular pattern inlaid with technology, distinctly better maintained than its surrounding environs. Eva wondered if it had been used lately. On second glance…. Eva’s frown stretched over her face. If not an arena, what was it? 

The door finished opening with a creak, causing Eva to flinch. A clatter caught her ear, and Eva jerked her blasters, silently. By this point, the two Revanites had realized they weren’t alone, and they emerged from an open hangar, weapons out. Eva saw past them and realized their shuttle was prepped for take off. They’d made it just in time. 

A look to Risha, and the other woman stayed back, pulling her blaster rifle off her shoulder and taking aim. Jakarro was already loading up his bowcaster. 

Eva made eye contact with the Sith first. She knew less of him than Darok, but he was likely far more dangerous. Eva knew blasters, not magic tricks. She had a few guesses about the latter. Arkous had the audacity to tip his head to her, as if saluting a pretty lady on Dromund Kaas. Eva forced her lips to remain still, not letting a snarl cross her face. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of provoking a visceral reaction. 

Then her eyes went to Darok, that bald arrogant bastard. Eva had been used to lies and being lied to as smuggler. Since her rise in ranks, her tolerance for it had dissipated to nothing. She admitted that having the power to inflict consequences on liars enabled her bullishness about the matter now. The break of trust yet again between Eva and a representative of the Republic rankled. This was the last job she was doing for the Republic.

Well, there would be one exception. 

Eva flipped open the comm to _The Warthog_ \--- best to give their eyes in the sky a heads up. Eva flipped the safeties off her blasters as she called out. “Gentlemen. The conspiracy ends now. Please lay down your arms or I have a Wookiee that will remove them for you.”

The Sith leered, “My, but we have a very high opinion of ourselves, don’t we?”

Darok seemed indifferent. “This project would have accelerated our plans considerably. Losing it is regrettable, but it will not stop us.”

Arkous shot a look at Darok before returning his attention to the smuggler. “You’ve done a _fair bit_ of damage, but the project isn’t a total loss.”

Eva looked back and forth between the two. Idiots couldn’t get their story straight. “You can’t con a con artist. Your project is tanked. Surrender now.”

Eva said nothing further. The penalty for treason was death; if they didn’t give up, they would receive their punishment regardless. It would simply be at her hand rather than through a torture chamber on Dromund Kaas or a lethal but efficient electrocution on Coruscant. She could offer them no benefit for surrendering. 

Whether they had considered this or not was irrelevant, and Darok indicated as much. “We will never abandon the plan.”

A bolt fired from behind Eva and Arkous easily deflected it. Eva did not have to ask; she already knew who fired when Jakarro yelled out, “Is it part of your plan to be torn limb from limb?”

There was only a beat of silence before Darok opened fired and Arkous charged with his lightsaber lit. 

**


	7. Nowhere is Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eva, Jakarro, and Risha race to Port Nowhere despite injuries and a damaged shuttle. Eva attempts a crash landing; the best pilots can crash land a plane with minimal fatalities. The bad ones die. The question is, which one is Eva?

This wasn’t fun anymore. And this seriously was the last job Eva was ever taking from any government. She reached this conclusion as she laid sprawled on her back, slammed into the ground by whatever gravity generator Arkous had strapped to his wrist. Obviously, that was exactly what happened because the Force was a scam, and she _clearly_ was not dropped by his natural powers. 

The pain in her back told her she most certainly had cracked a bone somewhere – vertebra or rib, she wasn’t sure yet. She heard her heart beat in her ears and time slowed down for a second. Her vision blurred. Oh, great, she’d landed on her head too. The nausea came a split-second later. 

She’d lost her blaster at some point after the first bounce.

Eva sucked in a breath and she looked up at the blue sky of Rakata Prime. She rolled to her belly and tried to get up, but Arkous was still fixated on her, pressing her flat to the ground, trying to make her an easy kill for Darok. Arkous looked dismayed that he hadn’t caved in her ribcage yet as she kept threatening to rise up. 

Eva heard Risha’s rifle blaster bolts striking near her, scorching the tan stones. Suddenly she was free of the weight. No blaster though, bad times. A horrid strangling noise met her ears, and she awkwardly rolled to look back. 

Arkous had decided to deal with Risha after she’d disrupted his concentration. Her eyes bulged as her feet swung helplessly in midair. Her hands flew up to her neck to try to pry away invisible fingers.

A spike of white rage shot through Eva, and her left hand flew to her holdout knife in her sleeve. She hoped Sith anatomy wasn’t too far off from humans, and she lunged from her position on the ground.

Turns out the femoral artery was right in the same place. 

Arkous’ shriek echoed off the stones and metal arena around them, crumpling as his life leeched away. The grotesque scene and sudden turn of fortune drew Darok’s attention for a split second, just long enough for Jakarro to line up the fatal shot. Risha dropped to the ground, and Eva squirmed on her belly toward her and away from the rapidly spreading pool of purple-red blood. 

Risha’s sides were heaving as she tried to drawn in more air. What mattered was that she was breathing. “Other than the obvious, you ok?” Eva wrapped a hand around Risha’s and gave it a brief squeeze. 

Risha nodded, looking at her friend. “You?”

Eva shrugged. “Back hurts. We’ll find out once we’re out of here.”

The pool of blood continued to grow. 

“Let’s not get too dirty.” Risha re-assumed her aloof persona and drew herself to her feet. Eva slowly pushed herself into a sitting position, then took a hold of Risha’s hand to pull herself up as Jakarro came over to them, eying the pool of blood.

“Well, that happened as advertised,” D4 observed. “Your blaster’s over there.”

Eva gave Risha brief look, and the Drayen heir wordlessly retrieved her Captain’s blaster. Eva didn’t feel like bending her back from the rest of the week.

Eva winced as she started to stiffly make her way toward the computer console to slice _The Warthog_ in. “If you want to have anything as a trophy, be my guest. I don’t know where he’s been though.”

“I’d rather have the scotch you wasted this morning,” Jakarro groused. “But you’re a fierce smart little thing.” He shouldered his bowcaster and joined Eva on her walk toward the computer, Risha trailing slightly behind. Eva could hear the click of the diagnostic computer being switched on to check her out. 

Eva’s wrist comm was already buzzing. She applied the omnitool to the main terminal, and it almost instantaneously detached itself. “They were using it, right before we arrived.” Eva made a face at the terminal before turning back to Risha, who finally handed back her blaster.

She scowled too. “Better let them know up there.”

Eva ported the wrist comm signal over to the mainframe, and a holo image flickered to life. Theron and Lana appeared to be standing at the main holocomm in the lounge of _The Warthog_. “Did we look good from up there?”

“Hi to you too. Status on the targets?” Theron’s voice came through first. His gaze was fixed on his datapad.

“Dead. They fought to their last breath, and nearly Risha’s too. We won’t be getting any information from them.” Eva liked money, but she liked Risha more. “They used this console right before we showed up.”

“Copy that,” Theron replied. Then, off to the side: “Blast it.” Theron liked information, but Eva hoped he knew better than to ask her to sacrifice her crew for it. “Tracing the signal now.”

Jakarro barked at the holo image. “Why should we care what they could have said? They were weak liars!”

As D4 affirmed Jakarro’s statement, Eva noticed that Lana’s weight shifted, as if she heard something. Suddenly, she grabbed at Theron’s shoulder. “I sense something. We’re in danger.”

Theron stared at his datapad and then ran a finger over his implants to tap directly into the ship. “There’s nothing –”

Suddenly, Eva heard pops overhead. “That’s a hyperspace drop. Where are they?”

Theron was gone from the screen, likely making a run for the cockpit, but she could hear him through his implants “Multiple sensor contacts! Capital ships are dropping out of hyperspace – no IDs.” She heard a clatter as he chucked his datapad onto the dashboard. “I got three. One of them’s coming in hot, entering the atmosphere.” 

Risha stared up. “That’s an Imp Harrower-class dreadnought. That requires more than just a skeleton crew.”

“There’s two of them plus a Thranta corvette, Pub,” Theron informed them. Lana reached over to the holocomm and turned off the image and redirect the conversation back toward the cockpit. Theron’s image returned, soon joined by Lana. She sat down in the copilot’s seat.

Another pop came to Eva’s ears through her personal comm. “Ah, kriff. _Thief_ is here.”

As expected, Corso immediately hailed her. “Uh, Cap?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on either.” Eva merged Corso’s signal with _The Warthog_ ’s. “Get ready to run.”

“Nothing new, then,” Akaavi drily quipped. “Captain—”

A broadcast began to be sent from the dreadnaught that had entered Rakata Prime’s atmosphere. A disembodied voice rumbled through the roof of the temple as the great ship blotted out the sun. Eva realized that this wasn’t just a battle arena – it was a stage. “Arkous and Darok were valuable allies in my cause but their deaths will not delay what is coming.”

Eva and Risha stared at each other. That voice. “Very Awful Thing,” Risha whispered.

Both Lana and Theron appeared to recognize the voice as well. “It’s him. Revan.”

At the center of the arena, a loud clicking noise started to emanate, as if long-forgotten machinery were being activated. A long series of crackling noises filled the air, and Eva’s curiosity propelled her to take a few steps forward, drawing closer. Risha annoyedly grabbed at Eva’s shoulder, but she was shrugged off.

The image of a masked man flickered to life before them. A memory from years ago resurfaced in Eva’s a mind, of a man with scars on his face. She had wondered where the scars came from. Looking at the mask, she could now hazard a guess. “My Infinite Army could have achieved so much. But I still have other weapons in my arsenal.”

Eva descended the steps, a wary eye on the image. She spoke. “Revan. We freed you from Imperial captivity at the behest of the Republic. Why do you move against them now?”

A clatter rose up from _The Warthog_ ’s end of transmission. Surprise, spies.

Revan’s head adjusted itself, as if attempting to draw closer to see the smuggler clearly. The masked face betrayed no immediate sign of recognition, but the voice answered, “The Republic is too weak and unfocused to do what must be done. To achieve my goals, all distractions must be swept aside. Even you.” The mask drew back, reset to its original position. “My followers are legion. My ranks grow every hour, as more and more people see the truth of the galaxy.”

Eva was not cowed. “I heard you were killed at the Foundry, but no body was recovered. How have you managed to cheat death one more time?”

Eva had sold that intel for a handsome price. She wanted to know why there were now loose ends.

“The Emperor couldn’t break me. Even death could not stop me. When the matter is important enough, one will overcome any obstacle,” Revan answered. He -- or the person pretending to be him – paused, as if wondering…. But it was only for a moment. “I will finish what I’ve started. And you will not interfere again.” The message abruptly cut out, and a drone filled Eva’s ears. It was painful enough that she covered them, and she saw Risha and Jakarro react similarly.

Theron’s alarmed yell drowned out the sound in her ear. “They’re powering up weapons! Get of there – now!”

Eva took the steps back up to the computer console two at a time as the sound of laser fire descended from above. Rubble began to drop from high places. In the rush, Eva jumped and rolled to the side of the mainframe, the large machine deflecting larger chunks of stone. She curled up into herself and waited.

There was nothing she could do except wait it out.

Voices from both ships over her head talked crossways across each other.

Then Eva heard Risha scream, and she found a thousand things to do. 

“Cap, we —” 

“Eva, I – ”

“Clear the line.” Eva pulled out her captain’s voice. As the explosions continued and rocks continued to fall, Eva stuck her head out from behind the console, trying to see through the dust. She could see Risha. Or, the part of Risha that had caused the scream. Her ankle had been crushed by the debris, even as she had found shelter at the edge of the shuttle hangar. “Jakarro, you alive?”

A disgruntled bellow came from her right. Eva looked and found him sheltering between two large pieces of rubble that had formed a perfect haven upon landing. Her eyebrows rose.

D4 apparently saw her. “Don’t even gloat about the luck.”

She didn’t. “Go get her, get in the hangar, and _be careful_ about her.” Jakarro peered around the fallen stone, his green eyes finally finding Risha. He let out an acknowledging growl, and the two of them rolled out of their shelters in order to make a break for the shuttle hangar, which was still open. 

Theron’s distressed voice cut in, “We can’t reach you.” 

“Then you two need to get out of here, no offense.” Eva juked an electric bolt that was sent up from the now-damaged holocomm. “You don’t know how to fight in that thing.” 

Eva sprinted the last few meters into the hangar, which shook as another round of fire left it pockmarked. “We have an injury – Risha, ankle. Corso?”

“It’s hot and heavy up here, Cap,” he replied. “You want us to make some noise?”

“They notice you yet?”

“Nope.”

“Keep it that way.” Eva looked at the shuttle. “Nowhere is home, Corso. Stay on the line, we’ll rendezvous.”

D4 startled to life, eyes flashing. “What was that?”

Meanwhile, as if reading her mind, Theron asked her, “Can you steal the shuttle?” She couldn’t see him now, but the worry was coming through. 

“If I can hotwire it, I can fly it.” Eva slammed her omnitool onto the lock on the shuttle and went to help Jakarro with Risha. 

The Wookiee had effortlessly picked her up, as easily as Bowdaar would have. Jakarro was large enough that his arms could support Risha’s ankle as well as her body. 

Risha was awake. “You forgot to duck,” Eva half-heartedly teased her as she grabbed at the med bag still slung around Risha’s shoulder. “I’m going to give you all the best drugs.” She met Jakarro’s eyes. “Hold her steady.” 

“No kolto – I don’t want it to heal this way,” Risha said through clenched teeth. 

“I know, I know,” Eva reassured her. Her hands flew through the bag, pushing aside things that weren’t needed at the moment. “Painkiller, coming your way.” There was a hiss and Risha sighed. “I don’t think we can do anything here other than hurry the hell up, right?”

Risha nodded. 

Eva’s eyes darted back toward her omnitool. Then she opened comms with both ships. “Corso, give _The Warthog_ our parking pass at Fleet. And tell Rogun to meet us halfway.” 

The omnitool clicked, and the two smuggler captains were in motion, barging into the shuttle. They had cut it close indeed; the green lights were still on from the pre-flight checks. As anticipated, however, the controls had been locked down once Darok and Arkous had been distracted. Eva shrugged off her coat, and with a “kark!” caused by the pain in her back, she slid under the dashboard on the pilot’s side to get around the security features. 

“Cap?” came Corso’s voice. 

Akaavi come in over the comm. “In case you were wondering, you gave yourself cracked two thoracic vertebra and three cracked ribs in the back.”

“I did no such thing.” The thin long hands reached up through the wiring of the shuttle and did the patient, careful work of starting the shuttle in a manner not intended by the shuttle’s manufacturer. 

“Yeah, that Sith bounced her a few times,” Jakaarro piped up. 

Bowdaar’s irritated growl came over the comm. “And what did you do?”

Eva bent her head forward, careful not to bash it on the underside of the control panel. “Can you two save it until we --?”

“We can’t go there,” D4 suddenly objected. Eva realized he picked up on the code previously. He knew they were referring to Port Nowhere, and he most certainly didn’t want to go. Eva didn’t care.

Eva let her head thump back against the floor. “Let me get this thing started and we’ll have a kriffing roundtable discussion then, ok? Come on, you piece of drekk.”

Finally, the shuttle hummed to life. Eva hooked her foot around the pilot’s seat and pulled herself forward, then clawed her way up to the seat, more choice curse words coming out of her mouth. “Shuttle is a go.” Eva flipped on the tracking. “ _Warthog_ , you need to go now, you have no ability to defend yourself.” Flying an XS was one thing; combat was a whole different Wookiee and nerf show.

There was a quiet “Theron” from Lana. “Just wanted to see you get off the ground,” he supplied. “Received the pass from Corso. See you at Fleet.”

That comm line was cut shortly thereafter. “Corso, any word from Rogun yet?”

“Not yet. Might have caught him at lunch.” 

“Figures.” Eva activated the shuttle’s repulsorlifts and began to pull out of the hangar. “Shields online, preparing to exit atmosphere. Evasive patterns activated.”

The Harrower had not yet noticed the shuttle; it was still intent on razing the temple to the ground. 

A moment. An unfamiliar hum. 

“Run a scan on this shuttle – are we transmitting something?”

Corso replied, “Yeah. It’s a transmission to the capital ships. Just the names of Arkous and Darok.” It took a moment, but then it registered. “Ah, hell, Cap, they can track you.” 

Eva’s eyes opened up wide. “Where from? I’m not seeing an internal signal from within the shuttle itself.” 

“Might be an external tracker. You should have checked before take-off,” Akaavi replied. 

“Time is a commodity, Akaavi, and we still don’t have a lot of it.” Eva’s mind raced. “Give me coordinates for the graveyard. We’ll run them through there. Then you’re going to shoot the tracker off the shuttle.”

There was a crackle of static over the comm line. “Oh, hell, no.” D4’s response was unfiltered from within the shuttle.

“We can’t go anywhere without being chased unless we do. Unless you want me to land this thing back down now?” Eva gestured out the window, as the shuttle picked up speed on its gradual ascent through Rakata Prime’s atmosphere.

Eva peered up at the Harrower. Still fixated on the temple. “Can you jam the signal?”

Corso cleared his through. “I _could_ but I’d have to cut comm with you. We’d have to do that space dance radio silent, shooting and all.”

“Well, guess it’s time for me to prove I trust your flying and Akaavi’s trigger finger. Jam away.”

**

**1 hour after departing Rakata Prime**

A great strike rocked the little shuttle, and the metal screamed. Risha let out a little gasp as she tried to sink lower in the shuttle-standard cot that was attached to the far wall. Eva could only look back as her hands flew over the stabilizers, activating them manually. The shuttle’s telemetry went haywire, spitting out reams of information about how they’d been struck with their shields off. 

“Did they get it?” Jakarro asked, stomping his way up to the front. 

Eva raised a finger, waiting for the comms to come alive again. “Captain to _Virtue’s Thief_ , do you read?” 

Nothing. 

Eva looked up at Jakarro. “Get ready for another shot.”

Finally, at that moment, Akaavi’s voice rang through. “Captain, you are clear. The shuttle is anonymous as we are.” Eva let her slump in her seat slightly, then bolted up straight again as pain shot through her. 

Guss’ voice finally came through. “Boss, Rogun is on his way. I gave him coords in the colonies as a halfway point. Once we hop to hyperspace, it should be about six hours.” 

“Roger that. Let’s hit the hyperlanes.”

**

**7 hours after departing Rakata Prime**

“Dropping out of hyperspace,” Eva announced to her passengers, though she was pretty sure they couldn’t hear her. With a few final adjustments, she turned her head toward the back of the shuttle. 

After another round of pain medicine (and a few shots from Eva’s medicinal flask), Risha had fallen into a numb sleep. Jakarro was asleep on a pile of crates not far from her. Eva had shrugged on her jacket again as she kept the shuttle as cool as possible.

D4’s eyes flashed once, then she heard him speaking through her wrist comm, so as not to disturb Jakarro or Risha. “Captain Corolastor, we can’t be seen on Port Nowhere.”

“Nice move, D4,” Eva remarked. “You mentioned – sorry we never had the discussion.” Eva reached down to adjust the pilot’s seat again, so she could find some relief for her aching back. “Why?”

“Ummm. We may have some bounties on us. For misunderstandings, of course,” D4 added in a rush.

Eva rolled her eyes. “Who put them on you?”

“Voidfleet members. Nobody too high up the food chain….it’s the number, not the severity, really,” D4 assured her. 

Eva covered her mouth as she yawned. Stars, she was tired. “So what? You afraid of Jakarro getting fragged? Or you being repossessed or something?” 

“Both. Or something.”

Eva yawned again. “Can you pay what you owe to get the bounties off your skulls?”

D4 hesitated. “There’s one or two that are kill on sight.”

Eva made a sour face. “‘It’s the number not the severity, really,’” she mimicked D4. “Bullshit. Kill-on-sights aren’t granted lightly by the Voidhound.”

“How would you know? Very few in Voidfleet have ever met him,” D4 retorted.

Eva let a diabolical grin consume her face. This was going to be good.

A hail signal flashed on the dashboard of the shuttle. “Hello, hello.”

“I just moved a space station for you, and that’s all I get?” Rogun replied, cranky.

Eva stifled a laugh. “You _only_ moved a space station for me, in return for the presence of the greatest good you shall ever know?”

“You’re referring to me, right?” came a familiar voice. 

“Absolutely, Alilia. Absolutely.” Eva smiled, and she hoped it could be heard through the comm. “Alright, I’m ready to park and take a nap. We have, uh, a minor complication. I’m going to need to suit up. I have some associates that have enemies on Voidfleet. I need to, in Risha’s words, place them under my aegis.” 

A sleepy voice from the back of the shutter rose up. “I’ve heard my name invoked. Are we close?” 

“Yeah,” Eva called back. “We’re going to need to get to medbay too – she’s got a crushed ankle,” Eva addressed Rogun and Alilia. 

“Ok, ok. You’re actually acting like you own the place. Not a bad thing, just a change,” Rogun commented. “So, who are the dumbasses that you need to protect?”

Jakarro let out a low groan. He was awake now too. Eva replied, “Can I sit on that, in case we have some interested parties eavesdropping? I just need the get-up – whole thing, including the hat.” 

“You got it. Alilia will go through and find everything – hell if I know what you wear.”

“If you knew, we’d have words,” Alilia piped up. An audible smooch was heard over the comm, and a door opened and shut.

Eva smiled. “So, when’s the wedding? I’m not joking either.” 

“Ahumh…. How about you land first, boss?” 

Eva couldn’t resist the temptation to rib him. “No cursing, discreet, and diplomatic? She’s broken you, Rogun. You’ve gone from the Butcher to the guy who’s going to cut his kid’s sandwiches into cutesy shapes and put notes in their lunchbox.”

A very, very quiet, “fuck you” came over the comms, and Eva laughed, despite the pain in her back. 

Eva started to go through the sequence of preparing to drop speed and switch to repulsorlifts and reverse engines in order to glide right into the bay of Port Nowhere. 

And then the red lights came up like they were decorating a Life Day tree. 

Bad times.

Eva silently scowled as she started running a self-diagnostic to figure out what was wrong. “Rogun, can you visualize my shuttle and tell me what the hell happened to it?” 

There was an affirmative grunt and she heard Rogun running his hands over the large computer in his office. “You got shot at?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“How do you get ‘kinda’ shot? You did or you didn’t,” he groused at her.

Eva rolled her shoulders. “Akaavi had to shoot us from the _Thief_ because we were in a rush and forgot to take off a tracking beacon.”

“Huh. Nice shot. I can see where she shot off the beacon but she also fucked your repulsorlifts. And no, I’m not putting money in the swear account because that is the accurate assessment: that shuttle is scrap once you park it,” Rogun reported. “Looks like a female Houk tried to use a rocket as a sex toy under there. And it went off.”

This time, Eva could hear cautious hoots from the Wookiee and his droid from behind her. Everyone was listening in, except Alilia, which was probably a good thing for Rogun. “Well, at least now I know it’s you, Rogun.”

“I’m still the same, just better-behaved. Usually.” He clicked his teeth. “I think there’s some damage to the engine at the front – the one that makes you go in reverse.” 

The diagnostic came back. “Oh, yeah. Sending data to you now. I think a legit assessment here is that it's buggered."

Rogun was silent for a minute as he read over the data. “Yeah.” 

Risha groaned. “I don’t want to hear that. That means either I need to get into an EVA suit or …. the other thing,” she finished, with dread in her voice. 

“The other thing,” Eva said. Eva cut the engines on the shuttle. “Rogun, clear the decks of all space vehicles, supplies, and anyone you hold dear.”

There was a long, long silence on the other end. “Oh, kark me, you’re going to crash land that thing in here?”

Eva popped her tongue against the inside of her bottom lip. “Yeah. I’m not thrilled either, but all I can do is cut engines and drift in and put my hopes in our safety features, unless you want to wait for this thing to slow down in the vacuum of space and chase me around.”

Rogun sigh. “No. Don’t have time for that. Gimme 15 minutes, then you can splatter yourself.”

“You got it. Corolastor out.”

Eva pushed herself to her feet and walked to the back of the shuttle. “You heard us. I’m sorry.”

Jakarro asked, warily, “What happens after you land the shuttle? My droid told you…things.” 

“You wait in here until I’m ready. Then all the problems are fixed. I’m leaving at that.” Eva turned her gaze over to Risha. “We need to secure you, best we can. Try not to do any more damage. 

Risha frowned. “Brace position. Turn me around so my back is toward the front of the shuttle.”

“Like a flight attendant on one of the commercial cruisers. Got it. Jakarro, probably in your best interest to do likewise, after you help me get her arranged.”

As Jakarro effortlessly picked up Risha, he asked, “What about you?” 

“Gotta pilot this thing in. Port Nowhere has safety protocols that will activate an internal tractor beam and a few anti-grav fields if it feels something is coming in too hot – we don’t have an external tractor beam, which would make this a lot easier, but it’d also scare spacers off.” 

Eva strapped Risha to the floor and against one of the side supports of the shuttle wall, facing the back of the shuttle as Jakarro did the same for himself. The comm snapped to life. “Port to Captain: you ready for this?”

“For a crash landing? Normally not.”

Risha scoffed, “Don’t pretend it’s not your first.”

“I’m not, I just don’t make it a habit to be ready for.” Eva gave the straps a few tugs. “Feel right to you, Rish?”

The other woman nodded. Eva pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Good luck back here.” Risha clapped her cheek gently in response. 

As Eva rose to walk back to the cockpit, D4 slowly drew out the question. “So are you two…?”

“I can be affectionate without being interested in nailing a person. You want one too?” Eva opened her arms.

D4 hastily responded with an emphatic “NO” while Jakarro demurred, “I’m not that type of Wookiee.”

Eva was willing to bet that if she was a certain Sith lord, it’d be a whole different story. Eva smirked as Rogun piped in, “Ok, now that we’re done with the 15 second Holonet trailer for Spacer Girls Gone Wild, can we hurry up this whole crash landing thing?” 

Eva strutted toward the front. “Yes, Pops. Where are you?” She scanned the horizon in front of the shuttle. There was that old Hutt freighter. “Ok, lining myself up. I’m just letting this tin can drift in. Nothing else I can do. We just have to not miss.” 

Rogun started to say something, but he cut himself off. 

Eva said nothing but grinned as she kept her eye on Port Nowhere. “Got my kit, Alilia?”

“You bet,” came the sweet tone voice, which belonged to the woman who likely had silenced Rogun upon entry. 

Eva locked in the trajectory and watched carefully as Port Nowhere drew closer to her. “60 seconds to impact.” 

“You might want to buckle in,” Rogun warned her.

Eva nodded. “Just making sure we’re good—”

Suddenly, the shuttle’s collision alert systems went off. It automatically tried to fire the retro-engines, which had been rendered inert by Akaavi’s sharpshooting. “Can you tweak it? Port Nowhere is a little less maneuverable than your shuttle,” Rogun tartly reported.

Eva’s hands flew over the shuttle console. The alert continued to chirp at her. “Am I good? This thing is having a conniption.”

“Nose down, just a bit, or else you’re going to bounce off the ceiling.” 

“Better to skid along the floor, you’re right.” Eva tried to adjust the course again. “Eh, fuck it. Sorry, Alilia. Switching to manual.”

Eva flipped open the fuse box under the pilot’s dashboard and pulled the necessary switch. The yoke system extruded from the ship, Eva watching the approaching massive ship, silent and still. 

“No fine for her?” Rogun asked, the nerves showing through. “Less than 30, Eva.”

“She’s not raising Trick. She’s the wild big-hearted aunty that brings the best presents,” Alilia answered, matter-of-factly, though Eva could hear worry in her voice. 

Eva took hold of the yoke and gently adjusted the flight path. The alarm switched off, finally, at 15 seconds to go. The shuttle drifted toward the lip of hangar. Eva’s fast hands went to work at buckling her safety harness in. 

10,

9,

8,

Eva dipped the nose just slightly so the belly of the shuttle would scrap the floor of the hangar, and the alarm went on again. “This one’s good, boss. Brace yourself.” Eva locked the yoke in position. 

7,

6,

She withdrew her hands, folding them to cross her chest as her ever-critical pilot’s eye watched.

5,

4,

The nose of the shuttle entered the hangar, and she could hear the alarms going off, as the station detected the lack of deceleration. 

3,

2,

Eva spun in her chair so that she faced away from the front windshield of the shuttle. She braced her legs against the floor and let her torso relax.

1,

Collision.


	8. Missed Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crews of Virtue's Thief and the Warthog suffer in radio silence, as it appears that Carrick Station has been attacked.

There was a violent jolt that rattled every bone in Eva’s body. She cursed at her own pain but couldn’t hear herself over the alarms and the crush of metal. The crackling of the windshield upon impact, Risha’s painful yelp. The electronics sparked and then fried, sending up the smell of burning plastic. There was a high, grinding sound as the shuttle skidded across the hangar deck. Distantly, she could hear Rogun yell something over the comm.

_BANG_

They’d hit the back wall of the hangar and Eva felt the world spin and her bones ache. 

That ultimately brought them to a slow stop, the shuttle tilting like an old broken chrono as the mechanism lost its tension. Loud creaks and groans emanated from the stressed metal of the shuttle.

_CRASH_

As the docking bay had equalized pressure between itself and the shuttle, the windshield shattered over her shoulders, covering the floor with a fine layer of transparisteel.

As the shuttle finally stopped, Eva turned her chair forward again. She pulled the cuff of her jacket over her right to protect it from the shattered glass and cleared off the control panels, shaking off the sleeve every so often. Once it was adequately de-fragmented, Eva powered down the shuttle. Without looking up, she called out, “Everyone still alive back there?”

Affirmatives were sent up from the back. Eva smacked at the flashing comm light. “Port Nowhere Mortuary, you whack ‘em, we stack ‘em, this here’s Thelma.”

There was a beat of silence. “That’s just wrong, Cap. But yeah, glad you’re okay,” came Corso’s voice. “We dropped out just in time to see you land her. Nice one.” 

“Not sure if you can ever call a crash landing a nice one,” Eva replied. “You keeping radio silence with _The Warthog_?

“Yup. We didn’t see anyone tracking or chasing us, so they might have gone after them. Hope they make it to Carrick ok.”

“Same.” Eva pressed her lips into a thin line. “Well, we’re alive and in, just waiting for the Welcome Wagon. Captain out.” 

She consulted her chrono. Her body was telling her it was 2200, after being up since about 0500. Eva needed to eat and to have a nap. 

There was a knock at the shuttle door. Eva unstrapped herself and got to her feet, body stiff. After a few stutter steps, she walked to the hatch and palmed the release. A familiar red Twileek was holding a laundered uniform bag. “Alilia.” Eva embraced her old friend, who was careful not to squeeze her in return too tightly. “Sorry about the mess.”

“Your house anyway, boss,” she replied in good humor. As the embrace ended, Alilia asked, “Where’s the patient?”

“Over here.” Risha raised a hand in greeting before letting it settle on her forehead. “I think all the bones in my ankle are broken, no break in the skin though. It hurts. And I might have a hangover from the Captain’s flask,” she admitted.

Alilia clicked her tongue in minor disapproval. “And I’m guessing it’s your back?”

Eva nodded. “Would have been worse without the beskar, but yeah, I’ve got some cracks. Shoot me up with some bone-bond and calcium and let me take a nap, and I’ll be fine. Let’s get this done.” 

Eva shrugged out of her jacket and started to make quick work of her shirt. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I don’t want to see anything I can’t unsee,” Jakarro objected. 

“Go face the corner then. She needs to get changed to protect _you_ ,” Alilia chided him. 

“These little space harpies,” the Wookiee grumbled. “No wonder that man sounds old and henpecked”

D4, however, had grasped more finer points of the exchange. “Turning off optical sensors. Turn around, you great oaf.” 

The switch took seven minutes, longer than usual than usual. Eva was really hurting. 

When Jakarro turned back around, he jumped despite himself.

Gone was the little space harpy, that smart smuggler.

Eva took private relish in watching his eyes open wide as it dawned on him that _she_ was the Voidhound. It was times like these she wished D4 was slightly more articulated or that droids had better faces with which to emote.

When she spoke, it was the Voidhound’s low and deadly tone, emotionless and cool. Even. Passionless. “You’re here under my protection. Do not wander. You follow me to my office. We will resolve your bounties today. You don’t cross Voidfleet thereafter. Since we are business affiliates, I’m willing to add you to our rosters if you can control your greedier impulses.”

“This is creepy. The eyes thing – ” D4 started, but Jakarro struck the disembodied head with some force.

“Quiet.” That was all Jakarro said. Then he stared at the creature before him. “Why do you hide power?”

The Voidhound was motionless as she spoke. “I came into power by murdering my predecessor. I knew who he was. I don’t plan on giving my successor the same chances. I expect you to keep your silence about who I really am in the dark. My identity. My character.” She raised a steady hand to gesture to Risha. “On occasion, I send my double. You treat us as the same, no differentiation.” 

Jakarro thought about this, trying to absorb and reconcile what he had seen, what he had known.

He could finish his percolating on the way to her office. “Come, we have things to attend to,” the Voidhound abruptly ended the conversation as two medics arrived to take Risha in a hover-stretcher to medbay. 

That was how Jakarro and D4 met the Voidhound. They watched as she descended from the shuttle, pretending to be impervious and indestructible, even as they knew her back was broken, her mind was tired, and her heart was two hangar bays away, vested in _Virtue’s Thief_ and her crew.

**

**12 Hours after departing Rakata Prime**

Eva ran her hands over the _Thief’s_ controls in a moment of sentimentality. Always good to be home. Always good to make it back home. Risha was staying on Port Nowhere for the next week to let her recuperate. _Virtue’s Thief_ would return for her. 

For now, Eva and the rest of the crew, plus Jakarro, were enroute to Carrick. Eva would have to park the _Thief_ in a strange hangar; Akaavi and Bowdaar had agreed to sit watch on top of the ship to make sure nobody got too nosey. 

She really should have taken a longer nap. Eva had managed to kick up for two hours in medbay after Alilia had shot her up, but once the _Thief_ was refueled and restocked, off she went, breaking character in the Voidhound, to hug Risha goodbye in her hospital bed. It took a lot for Eva to resurface once she was in the mode. 

Eva consulted her chrono. 4 hours on Port Nowhere. Thanks to Rogun, Carrick Station was only 4 hours away from Port Nowhere by the time Eva launched the _Thief_. 

“Captain.” Eva turned around. Akaavi stood in the doorway of the cockpit. “You should go to bed for another nap. Your bio-readings are inadequate for you to pilot.”

“And who made that call?” Eva asked, knowing the answer.

“You did.” Eva had set minimum baselines for pilots. If they didn’t meet it, someone else had to drive.

“I’m an ass, then,” Eva proclaimed. Corso appeared right behind Akaavi, and they nodded at each other in passing as Akaavi herded her captain back to quarters. 

“How did you manage to defeat the Sith, Captain?” Akaavi asked as they walked.

Eva blinked a few times, trying to recall; she did need sleep. “Used the hold-out knife to stab him in the femoral artery. As Lana said, Force Users don’t consider blaster fire an actual threat.”

Akaavi sniffed. “It was foolish of you to be so close – he could have thrown you.”

“He was trying to crush me at the time, so I didn’t have a choice.” Eva yawned yet again and stretched her arms. 

Akaavi made a single motion that stopped Eva in her tracks. The Zabrak pulled something out her armor. “We found devices in the starship graveyard.” Eva looked at what was in her hand: a puck of durasteel, not dissimilar from a bounty hunter’s puck. Her eyes darted up to her crewman’s and waited. “When activated…”

With a flick of a switch, Guss’s yelp echoed through the ship. “Akaavi, it’s not funny anymore!”

Eva turned her head at the noise. “What --?”

Akaavi’s calm voice filled the hallway, even as Guss started to whinge. “It gives people sensitive to the Force a headache. I say sensitive, because Guss cannot use the Force, but he still has a response to it. I would anticipate that the stronger one is in the Force, the worse it is.”

Eva pressed her lips into a line. “Turn it off. The demonstration is adequate, for now.” Eva took the puck out of Akaavi’s hand once she had done so. “Have you used this on Guss when he knew it was coming?” 

Akaavi shook her head.

“We have to test that. See if he can overcome it. If he can, then someone with better control could just shrug it off if we weren’t clever enough.” Eva frowned. “You got a bunch of these?”

“We have a supply,” Akaavi kept her answer vague. “Do you want me to crack one open, see how it works?”

Eva nodded. “Yeah. We’re working with a Sith, and depending on how all this goes, we might be seeing the Jedi soon. I don’t want to cause collateral on people helping us.” 

Akaavi tilted her head. “I thought you didn’t believe in the Force.”

“Again, what is it with you people thinking I’m a Force atheist?” Eva was getting crabbier the longer this conversation kept her out of bed. “I just think the Jedi and Sith codes are bullshit and it doesn’t work like they think it does.” Eva pointed at the puck in her hands. “Who says there aren’t other devices like this that they use? Oh look, I gave them a headache through the Force, guess I have powers.” Eva’s voice was a quiet, agitated hiss. “I seriously need a nap.”

Akaavi allowed a small smile on her face. “You are getting cranky. What do you want me to do with this?”

Eva handed the puck back to her, calming herself down. “Figure out how it works. Why it works. And keep this quiet,” Eva replied. “I don’t want anyone outside the crew knowing about this. I don’t know what the state of play is now that Revan is back from the dead.”

Akaavi’s green eyes pierced into her. “You never thought to confirm the kill?”

Eva waved her hand back and forth in a negative motion. “I just sold the information onward. In the report I got back for loose ends and covering our ass, it said he went incorporeal – some Jedi do that when they die, apparently.” Eva put her hands on hips. “It wasn’t our fight. It still isn’t our fight. Republic should have paid its bills. We just need to be wise.” 

Akaavi nodded. “Has the spy done so?”

“He’s been good on the credits front. We might be done though; targets are dead.” Eva shrugged. “We’ll find out in about 3 hours once we reach Carrick.”

Akaavi consulted her chrono. “More like 2 and change. You should sleep.” 

Eva didn’t object. She gave Akaavi a wave as she walked down the curved hallway to her quarters and flopped into bed, face first.

**

**15 hours after departing Rakata Prime**

“Captain, wake up.” Akaavi’s voice demanded from the hallway. “Carrick is a madhouse. You need to see this.” 

Eva lifted her face up from her pillow, having not moved since she dropped a couple of hours before. Huh. “One moment.” Eva rolled out and consulted her vanity mirror. With quick fingers, she reapplied Dermaplast to the places where it had melted or been rubbed off. 

Eva winced at the pain her back as she walked to the cockpit, leading with her shoulders. Her clothes were rumpled and her hair was likely a nest, but her haste was well-deserved. 

Carrick was indeed a madhouse. Traffic was stopped, ships backing up in a long winding holding pattern. “Mother of Moons, what’s the chatter saying?” 

Bowdaar turned around to face her in the pilot’s seat. “Terrorist attack. Big explosion in the operations center.” 

Eva felt her blood run cold. “Is _The Warthog_ in our docking bay?” 

Bowie flipped a switch. “No. We can park if you want.” He paused for a second. “They may have been here and gone again.”

Eva stared out at Carrick and the chaos around it. “Yeah, maybe. Jakarro still asleep in the cargo bay?”

“Yes. We have not disturbed him or his metal man, “ Bowdaar replied. 

“Keep it that way. Less he knows the better for now.” 

“You going on station?” Corso asked from his position in the co-pilot’s seat. 

Eva nodded. “Alone. I won’t be long, one way or another.” 

She turned on her heel and marched back to her quarters to organize herself. To get a hold of herself. 

He’d been so reluctant to leave her.

Timing mattered. Too late, too early.

As Eva pulled on fresh clothes and tamed her hair, she heard herself murmur, just once: “Please don’t be dead.”

**

Eva easily used the omnitool to slice the lifts (despite the security lockdown that theoretically shuttered them). She was small and swift and careful as she tread familiar steps that she’d taken with Corso no more than 48 hours before. 

Eva threw a look over her shoulder as she crept around the barriers that blockaded the operations center. 

The thought flashed through her mind that there were no security personnel. No bodies? No remains? Or already removed? 

She smelled it before she saw it. Eva had experienced that multiple times within the last two days. When she fried the console. When Revan shot up the mainframe. The shuttle when she crashed it. And now the ops center on Carrick Station. 

Burnt plastoid. Fried wiring. Molten glass-substitute. Singed stuffing from the chairs.

There was one smell that was absent that she actively searched for. 

No burnt human flesh.

That smelled like Gamarrean pork, roasted or barbecued. The skin was human analogous.

Corso once got burnt, badly. He still had the scars on his upper arms and back.

Eva couldn’t eat pork for a year, and thereafter, she refused to be in proximity of it being prepared.

But she didn’t smell that here. 

That was a good thing.

Eva pushed forward, holding back the urge to call his name. She rounded the corner.

The op center had been blown out. All the major mainframes were damaged or destroyed. Pages of flimsi – not paper like what Eva used, made from trees – were scattered and burned all over the place. There were still occasional sparks flying, the persistent smoke in the air. 

There weren’t any obvious signs of a body having lain on the floor or across the broken planning table.

Eva breathed in and out once. Had he been there at all?

A familiar cheerful set of beeps rolled up behind her. Eva raised her brows as she looked down. “T3. Fancy meeting you here.” 

The droid whirred excitedly. “T3-G2 = here on important business.” 

“I see.” 

“Location = Manaan // You = tell no one // You = go there immediately! T3 = Take with you.”

Eva knelt down and whispered, quietly to the droid, “Those his orders?”

“Affirmative.” 

Eva felt the ache in her chest finally dissipate. “Well, then. Guess you get to have another adventure then.” She gave T3 a smile, and both of them turned to leave the op center. 

_His orders._

**

**19 hours after departing Rakata Prime**

Theron paced. They didn’t have much time left. They’d have to leave soon. The longer it took for the _Thief_ to get there, the less time they had to explain. 

If they arrived at all. Theron looked out the window at the rain. The _Thief_ had no reason to return to Fleet if Eva was –

_Stop it. It was a 13, and you two talked about it. Her choice._

That didn’t stop the flinch at the thought, nor the urge to cross his arms, as if to hold himself steady. It had nearly been 20 hours since they fled Rakata Prime, over 6 hours since they left Carrick Station. Wisely, the _Thief_ wasn’t transmitting any information so that it couldn’t be tracked. The ship was running silent.

Theron eyed Lana’s back uneasily. She had said she did not sense their deaths; if they’d been her parents, yes, but Eva and Jakarro were not dear enough for her to detect their Force signatures. All life had a presence in the Force, but they either had to be wielders or close family and friends to be truly sensed with any accuracy. 

Theron had not seen her relax since arriving on Manaan. Granted, Lana had seemed legitimately upset when she heard that the operations center had been rigged to blow sky high upon his entry. It had been a hasty, hack and smash job. No finesse.

**

**7 Hours Earlier (12 hours after departing Rakata Prime)**

Theron was in Carrick Station’s lift when it was stopped in transit, lights dimming. He was trying to get to the op center, get a secured line to _Virtue’s Thief,_ and figure out what to do next. Then he’d turn over his data to Trant. All of it. The Revanites had capital ships, pirate frigates, and fighters. The conspiracy was huge – not just a thousand cultists, but armed, well-supplied, and well-trained recruits from all walks of life.

Even Jedi. That profoundly bothered Theron. 

However, those concerns were filed away as Theron heard a ‘thump’ on the roof of the lift and a grinding of metal as hatch was pulled open. Theron’s instincts kicked into overdrive as he crouched in a corner and pulled his blaster, flipping the safety off. He readied his bracers as well, eying the door. In between floors – no exit except up. And that was blocked. Theron’s mind raced to Lana, who was currently stranded in the Pub Fleet hangar that _Virtue’s Thief_ typically occupied, hiding in _The Warthog_.

As skilled as she might have been, Lana was in trouble if she was caught in Carrick. 

The hatch was still only open a few inches when a single pass card was dropped down into the lift. It bounced one and landed just out of reach. Blaster cocked up toward the hatch with eyes fixed, Theron took a long step forward and stretched to reach the card. He recoiled back into his corner and raised the card up so that the hatch remained in his line of vision. His eyes darted a centimeter down and then up again, watching. 

Marcus Trant.

“Is that enough to get you to not shoot me, Shan?” came the familiar voice. 

“Sir.” 

The safety was clicked back on, and almost immediately, the hatched was wrenched open the rest of the way so that Director Marcus Trant of the SIS could drop down into the elevator with a knapsack on his back. 

Trant looked at Theron and read his nonplussed expression. “What, you thought I got to be Director because I was cute and could do paperwork on time?”


	9. Exodus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron takes his leave of the Republic. After a brief rendezvous at Manaan, Jakarro, Lana, and Theron disappear, leaving Eva to be spectacular.

**12 hours after departing Rakata Prime**

Theron recovered from the sudden appearance of the Director of SIS. “I would wager it’s been awhile since you climbed through an elevator shaft.”

Trant gave him a nasty look. “Your droid is buying us some time before the maintenance staff comes through and gets the lift running again. I’m going to say a lot very quickly.” Trant pulled a datapad out of his inner jacket pocket. “Remember how I said I would put eyes on Darok?”

Theron cautiously nodded.

“I know what just happened on Rakata Prime. I know this because I have someone in the Order of Revan. And I know what you’ve been up to there and on Manaan. And I know what your smuggler has been up to.”

Theron’s mind was abuzz with questions, but he couldn’t physically move. The worst was yet to come, however.

Trant flipped on his data pad. “I know because the Order of Revan has infiltrated SIS.” 

Theron’s blood ran cold. His entire life was exposed and endangered, as were any of his connections and – He felt himself breathe faster, his skin prickling.

Trant gestured toward words on the screen. “My plant is good at playing the useful idiot, but he hasn’t been able to determine the exact identity of the infiltrators yet.” Trant looked Theron in the eye. “I’m going to give you these files. No other copies exist, so do what you have to with them. We’re going to wipe files in the operations center and on the SIS mainframe, blow the ops center here on Carrick, and then you’re going to get out of here. You’re the one man I know that’s clean, and you need to see this through.”

Trant reactivated the lift with his wrist comm, and the lift started to move again. Theron took all of this in, as his mind tried to put itself back on the rails. “How long have you known about my continued pursuit …?”

“I suspected since you asked for the Rakata tech assignment. You tend to believe field work is a contact sport, and that assignment was not it. I got my man into the Order of Revan shortly before Manaan.” Trant shifted his weight. “And before you even ask, yes, I knew about the hit on the girl. I had to restrain my agent from preventing it or else his cover would be blown.” 

There was only a small bit of resistance in Theron’s mind before he accepted it as necessary. Wasn’t as if it slowed her down any. He carefully blocked out his private, personal objections that raged indignantly.

Trant’s fingers slid across the data pad screen and produced a grainy holo still of a far-flung space port, Eva and her crew walking back toward their ship. Another. The flash from the blaster rifle in front of them. The laser bolt arching.

Theron averted his eyes. He knew what was next. 

When his eyes returned to Trant’s hands, he saw the crew clustered, screening their captain from the assassins. Guss seemed to be looking right at the security holo.

A blaster bolt headed for the holo in the next shot, obscuring any activity on the ground. And that was the end of that intel stream; the camera had been shot out. 

Guss was a good guy. 

While Theron was still looking at that still, Trant quickly dragged his palm across the screen to replace one set of stills with another. These made Theron’s head jerk backwards. “For the sake of absolute transparency on my part, I’ve added a few from my own collection. I go for walks when I can’t sleep.”

Theron in the doorway with Eva. His hands on her face. He didn’t realize how he looked at her. Theron’s anxiety spiked as the stills continued – their conversation, their argument, her touch.

Oh, gods, he’d let her touch him and he still carried that in his mind. His face in that moment –

And then the noise of the bouncer – a still of Theron’s fierce protectiveness of her as she was in his arms. Then that kiss to her forehead. 

And then the moment when he’d pressed his body into hers. He hadn’t seen her face, just the pale skin she’d offered up to him. Now he saw her face and Great Original Light, she looked – and his face in response to the offer –

_You’re compromised._

“Theron.” Trant had apparently said his name more than once. 

Theron’s eyes jerked toward Trant’s face. “It won’t happen again.”

“Your conduct was above board here. Not your typical method, but that’s not your typical asset.” Oddly, to Theron, it seemed Trant was more concerned about Theron’s adverse reaction to the images rather than the images themselves. “You’ve done everything right here. The only reason these exist is because I knew SIS was already compromised, and I needed to make sure that you were not next on their hit list, especially since the Revanites were panicking. They couldn’t confirm the kill on her or the whereabouts of their bounty hunters.” Trant flicked the datapad off and gave it to Theron, who shoved it into his jacket’s interior pocket alongside his own.

The lift came to a halt and the two men exited out, walking swiftly in step with each other. Theron locked his eyes forward. He couldn’t look directly at Trant after that. 

T3 rolled up to greet them. Trant knelt down to issue orders to the droid. “Pop open the ops center. We need a distraction for about fifteen minutes. Keep them away from here.” T3 signaled an affirmative and rolled off, briefly sending a remote signal to let the two men in.

Trant followed the droid’s departure path with his eyes. “It needs to be deactivated or sent off somewhere. It already knows too much.”

“I have a place. He’d have to run dark, but it would be away from me and from Carrick.” Theron marched into the ops center, Trant not far behind him. Once they entered, the security shields were thrown up around the area and the doors were purposefully shut.

Trant shrugged off the bag and carefully put it on the floor. He opened it and pulled out several packages of explosives to be planted around the ops center. He tossed Theron the detonator. “Never answered my last Holonet message. What is it with you and smugglers?”

Theron didn’t look up as he synched the frequency of the detonator to the bombs they were about to plant. “They can get into places we can’t.”

“Is this one like your sister, too?”

Theron didn’t answer that one. 

The two men split apart to plant charges all around the ops center, working toward the back center console. Trant was silent.

Seven minutes in, T3 messaged Theron silently, “Janitor = coming. T3 = making mess.”

“Acknowledged. Going as fast as we can.” 

Three minutes to go.

As Theron tacked down the last charge under the far wall’s computer console, Trant spoke as he rose to his feet and worked at wiping databanks both at Carrick and remotely at SIS. “There have been no fewer than seven attempts to create a file named ‘Corolastor, Eva’ on the SIS internal Holonet and attempts to alter the ‘Voidhound’ file to redirect toward that name. The former ends up being deleted within minutes of creation, and the latter has now been locked to editing.”

The unsaid accusation was out there now. Theron saw little point in maintaining that illusion. “I’m keeping her from getting burned. Nobody should have been in those files except me.”

“Or me,” Trant reminded him. “The infiltrators here can’t connect the dots, thanks to you. The Imperials are terrified to move against her now, which aggrieves me, since you haven’t recruited her yet. Unlike a previous potential recruit, I very much doubt she has plans to be a stay-at-home mother, unless you have something _else_ to tell me.” 

This was a challenge to both his professionalism and his own highly personal desire not to repeat history. Theron’s anger rose up with no embarrassment attached. “I have not –” 

Trant waved it away. “As I said, your actions to this point have been above board – I’m just getting a rise out of you, which is a nice reversal of role for once. Now you need to do what you need to do -- off the grid; I can keep her flying.” 

Theron held Trant’s gaze for a few moments longer before getting to his feet as well, his temper still rolling just under the surface. “No contact will be the best course of action. Complete darkness.”

“Once we blow this place, you will be ‘apprehend on sight’ – I happen to like you. My source says that the other two will have death marks and kill-on-sights put on them.” Trant looked at Theron once more. “You’ve got to finish this or else your friends are dead. And those are just the minor casualties.” 

“I know.” Theron was fully cognizant of what this mission meant. The Revanites had infiltrated the Republic, far more extensively than previously suspected. It wasn’t just Lana and Theron who would pay – it was everyone, everything Theron valued. The Republic was endangered. 

Theron and Trant exited the ops center and sprinted down the hallway and around the corner. Theron received a message: “T3 = rendezvous?”

“Negative. Send smuggler to Manaan. No one else. T3, you stay with her. Do not go back to SIS.”

“T3 = smuggler crew?”

“Yes.”

“Acknowledged.”

Once Theron refocused on his immediate surroundings, Trant addressed him. “Ready to run?” He used a maintenance key to get to the ladder system that would take Theron back down to the hangar where Lana awaited him on _The Warthog._ “Avoids the janitors. Send me a page on the proper channels – you know the ones – once your ship is out of dock, and I’ll hit the detonator.” 

Theron nodded. He handed off the detonator to the Director as he stepped onto the first set of ladder rungs and decided that Eva’s method of sliding would probably be a lot of fun here.

Trant palmed the device, as if considering its weight. “Theron?”

Theron turned his head and leaned slightly back out to see Trant. “Sir?”

Trant gave him a look that would normally be directed at his hapless eternally-a-grad-student son. “Joking aside, she’s an upgrade from a diseased Rodian. Don’t waste it.” Trant looked obnoxiously self-satisfied as Theron felt his face falter. 

Fortunately, his escape route was at hand, and down the ladder Theron went. 

**

Within three minutes of Theron paging Trant (disguised as ex-wife #2), messages flooded his implants. That’s when he officially found out that, if he wasn’t dead due the bomb, he was a wanted man and probably should get away from Fleet. 

Now Theron and Lana waited for Eva and Jakarro, if they’d survived. 

**

**20 hours after departing Rakata Prime**

A swish of doors down the hall brought both Lana and Theron to attention. “That’s them,” she murmured before they rounded the corner.

Indeed, Eva was cloaked with the hood up to obscure her face, but her gait and pace was familiar to Theron now, even as it was stiffer than usual. _Her back_ , he recalled. There was no mistaking Jakarro, who trailed the smaller, swifter smuggler.

As Eva strode up to them, she lowered her hood.

Friends cared that the other person was alive. That came with not only the worry of death, but also the ecstasy of proof of life. 

Theron felt a pull in his chest as she looked immediately to him. She was checking to see if he was all right. He felt himself finally uncross his arms. He was fine – not even singed. Theron realized they were having a silent conversation as she let herself swagger, just a bit—she was fine, just sore. Eye contact was made, relief conveyed. The conversation ended for now.

“Theron, they made it. I knew it.” Lana sounded as relieved as he and Eva felt. 

Theron nodded, looking between both Jakarro and Eva. “With the amount of fire Revan’s ship was laying down…I wasn’t optimistic. It’s good to see you.” 

Eva gave him such a look, as if she were insulted. “I told you I could fly anything. If you want some laughs though, I’ll send you the security holo of me crash landing the shuttle in Port Nowhere’s docking bay. It was technically perfect.” She was proud of it. 

Theron wasn’t sure whether to laugh or have an internal meltdown – crash landing the shuttle in--

D4 grumbled. “I have a complaint.”

Eva and Jakarro said in unison, in Shyriiwook, “Nobody asked, droid.” 

Eva rolled onward, clearly in Captain mode. “Risha’s at home on the mend. We’ll collect her in a week. Jakarro may be working more closely with my business interests in the future—”

“Forget all that – _The Warthog_ better be in one piece!” Jakarro stepped past Eva to shake a claw at Theron. Theron’s eyes travelled from the claw to the Wookiee’s agitated face. Always him, never the pretty blonde lady and, even with a forced baptism, not the clever little smuggler. Theron gave Lana a look and she simply shrugged.

“The ship is fine. Come see for yourself.” Theron paused to – Lana nodded, already knowing what he wanted to ask. “There’s something we need to talk about, actually…” He gestured to the Wookiee to follow him to the hangar and the ship, leaving Eva behind momentarily with Lana.

**

As Theron and Jakarro left, Eva finally was able to focus on Lana, who looked no worse for wear. She stepped forward to address Eva. “It truly is a relief to see you safe. I only wish we had more time together…”

Two things struck Eva immediately. First, the desire to have more time with her. The second, not having more time with her. “A tiny scrap of humanity affecting you that much?” Eva asked, wit still quick and memory still accurate.

Lana swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean that as an insult. You are impressive.” As a very delicate, pale blush crossed the top of Lana’s cheek bones, Eva felt slightly guilty for striking upon that; it seemed she’d said to Theron in private in some particular context. 

“Explosives also come in small packages.” Eva gave her a half-grin. “Speaking of which, everyone all right after Carrick?”

Lana relaxed slightly. “It appears that there were explosives planted in anticipation of Theron’s return. He managed to set them off with no harm to himself. We were able to get off the station before the lockdown.” Lana tried again. “How are you?”

“Better than Risha, worse than Jakarro,” Eva admitted. “Nothing major.” 

Lana tilted her head slightly. “Your shoulder wasn’t recovered yet either.”

Eva didn’t like that Lana knew _that much_ about her shoulder. “It was 85%. That’s like a good grade in school, right?” Lana gave her a brief smile and they lapsed into silence.

It was the nervous glance that gave Lana away. 

Eva felt flattered but also apologetic. That wasn’t going to happen. Eva considered the second matter that had been evident at the start of the conversation. “You said you wished we had more time – what does that mean?”

Lana squared up to her. “It’s for the best. Theron and I learned some … troubling things after we escaped Rakata Prime and after Carrick Station.” Lana’s brow creased. “Intergalactic broadcasts.”

“Uh oh.” Eva internally berated herself slightly; she hadn’t thought to listen in since Rakata Prime – too many injuries, a harrowing escape, and then the worrisome flight to Manaan. “What’s the situation?”

Before Lana could reply, Theron returned, sans Jakarro. His face was solemn, his feet quick. “He took it better than I thought. You told her yet?” Eva’s attention immediately jumped to him, still inordinately pleased that he was all right. 

Lana shook her head, disappointed that the conversation had been interrupted. “I was about to, but I think it’s best if you do the honors.” Out of the periphery of Eva’s vision, she saw Lana look at her. “We’ll meet again soon – I’m certain of it.” 

Eva returned her glance to Lana and gave her a friendly nod. “Drop a line if needed. Sounds like you might be needing friends in low places."

Lana was able to offer a short laugh and a brief smile. “May the Force – ” Lana stopped to contemplate. “May luck serve you well.”

“Fast learner. Good luck, Lana.” The Sith seemed to walk more lightly as she departed the room, but gravity still pulled her downward.

Eva and Theron watched her go. 

Theron appeared to be oblivious as to the immediate situation. “She’s pretty confident for someone with a bounty on their head.” 

His words struck a low chord in Eva. “Are we all now Mandos’ Most Wanted?” Eva tore her gaze from Lana’s retreating back to look up at Theron. 

Theron turned his head to meet her gaze. “Not exactly. It’s an Imperial contract for murdering Arkous. Under any other circumstances, she would have gotten a promotion for that kind of thing.” Theron was darkly amused by it, but he did not laugh; his face contorted into a small snarl. “Thanks to Jakarro’s previous record, all three major governments have a total of 12 separate death marks for Jakarro. That’s a new record for him.”

Eva stared at the top of Theron’s head. “He must be so pleased with himself…. Did you get a head thump?”

Theron followed her line-of-sight and reached up to fix his hair, respiking it. “Yeah.” For a moment, he was less grim, but it was fleeting. 

Eva realized the reason why. “What about you?”

Theron continued to adjust his hair as he spoke, almost dismissive of his own problems compared to those of Lana and Jakarro. “‘Disavowed rogue agent – apprehend on sight’ for killing a Republic Colonel. Pretty tame compared to the others. Director Trant must have stood up for me.”

“How? Is there any way for you to reach the Director, find out who fabricated the reports?” Eva put her hands her hips, indignant. 

“Already did. The intel came through our Internal Security Division, all very well forged.” Anger seeped into his words. Eva realized that Theron had been betrayed by his own people. His order. “Each hit was an independent action by each of us. Darok and Arkous supposedly died nowhere near each other,” Theron explained. “Rakata Prime – never happened. Not even the data we collected will be considered at this point.”

Eva pressed her lips into a thin line, thinking as she stared at her boots for a moment. She was tired. She was hurt. There was a delay in her self-realization of danger, but when it hit, she felt electricity crackle through her, the mild panic surging through her as she looked him in the face. “What about the _Thief_?”

Theron carefully took a step toward her, his tone hushed. “After your little adventure with the Imperial Stock Market, they don’t want to touch you. Marr has been looking in on the Revanites who ordered the hit – not just Arkous. Basically, you’re now too much trouble for them to deal with head-on. You scared them.” His eyes gleamed. 

Eva studied his face carefully, watching for any tells. “So my ship is safe?”

“You and yours are safe.” His eyes settled on her face, concerned. “How’s the back?”

Eva could be honest with Theron. “I’m looking at least a month of not doing anything active,” Eva confessed. “Bone-bond injections to speed things along. I’ll recover, but I’ll be bored.”

“That’s a tragedy for a person like you,” Theron said, the tease in his voice, a smile threatening to appear. 

Eva let herself smile, a little. “I got my books – old friends that need revisiting. Oh, and I have your go-bag. And your droid,” she remembered, belatedly. “T3 insisted on coming along.”

Theron’s burgeoning grin dissolved. “I asked Jakarro to grab my go-bag from your ship already. And you need to keep T3 for me.” A beat. “I have to go.”

Eva had felt this coming, but she was sure she could sort this out. “Are you really such a dangerous man to be around?” She flirted shamelessly. “We’d pair well together, since I actually did what you’re accused of.” 

Theron gave her a thin upward turn of the lips, but there was no joy there. He took a step back, and when he spoke, his tone was professional and calm. “Lana, Jakarro, D4, and I are all going off the grid. We need to stay hidden if we’re going to continue our investigation. We are technically fugitives, so it’s best that you aren’t see with us.” 

Eva openly scoffed at that, and Theron raised a brow. “You do realize you’re talking to the greatest smuggler the galaxy has ever seen, right?” Eva gently poked him in the chest with a finger. “You do realize that I’ve spent nearly all of my life as a fugitive, whether it’s from Republic child welfare, from the Three Moons religious order, or the actual law of some government, right? This doesn’t scare me.”

Theron shook his head. “The Revanites may be afraid of you now, but that might not stay that way if you’re seen working with us, known criminals to the Republic, Empire, and the Hutt Cartel.” Firmly, Theron wrapped his hand around her accusatory fingers and pushed them back toward herself. “There is to be no contact, period.” He released her hand.

Eva wasn’t giving up that easy. “No contact at all, huh? Not even a little bit?” She raised her chin defiantly, a patently wanton expression on her face. 

To her very pleasant surprise, Theron hesitated.

His eyes hastily darted off to the side, where there were a series of offices. Offices with doors that could be easily sliced. “If we had more time…” He returned his attention to her almost immediately.

It was already too late. She had caught him hesitating, thinking, considering. He was interested, in a particular way.

She felt a hot spark rush through her, and her lips parted. _Oh hell yeah. There’s even a desk in there._ _Forget the back, there are worse ways to die._

The olive-gold eyes darkened before he caught himself. “…but we don’t,” he finished his sentence, and he pulled away from the edge of anything less than professional. Shamelessly, Eva tilted her head toward the door he had been looking at. 

_Wonder if all Wookiees are good wingmen – should have asked Jakarro to distract Lana…_

Theron shook his head. “There’s something _else_ I need you to do for me.”

The fire had been lit, openly, for both of them, however. He had considered it. She had accepted it, with enthusiasm. The tension in the room was palpable, and Eva was more than willing to break first, cross the distance between them, put her hand back on him --

Eva kicked her libido to the curb. Even if she got what she wanted, he might not forgive himself, for whatever reason; his internal conflict was written all over his face. “What do you want me to do while you’re gone?” she asked, free of sexual inuendo.

His eyes closed and then opened again, his composure regained. There was more than a small measure of gratefulness as they moved on from his momentary slip. “The Revanites will be watching you, so do what you do best – travel the galaxy, achieve impossible things, and make it hard for them to keep up. The busier you keep the Revanites, the easier it will be for the rest of us to slip through the cracks and find their leader.”

Eva let smuggler cockiness carry her through the conversation, even as her mind lingered at how close to temptation he’d fallen. “I haven’t met anyone yet who could keep up with me, but I’ll do my best to make it sporting for them.”

“Very gracious of you.” Theron gave her a grin, amused at her bravado. 

They saw through each other the whole time.

A few questions remained in her mind though. “Big picture: Do you think the masked guy that attacked us was really Revan?”

“You mean, has my ancient ancestor returned from the grave to kill us all?” He stopped. His tone became more pointed, more quiet. More dangerous. “What do you think? You seem to be more familiar with him than I am.” Oh, Theron’s mind was still sharp, even when temporarily waylaid.

Eva wryly remembered that he was still an agent of the Republic, who had a vested interest in Revan (even beyond familial ties). She chose her words carefully. Eva did not want to lie to him. “There is a disconnect between the man Risha and I freed at Maelstrom and who we saw at Rakata Prime.” Truth may have been freedom, but it was also potentially costly in this case.

Theron frowned. “That op was done under the aegis of Jedi Master Oteg. He’s since disappeared. Revan was at Tython for a time but he then left. We have Imperial reports that he was killed at the Foundry, but nothing independently confirmed.” He watched her carefully.

Eva could only respond, “I know.” If there wasn’t enough time to wreck a desk, there certainly was not enough time to discuss the VAT on Revan. She tried to convey as much without damning herself at the same time. “Finding out what _actually_ happened to Revan between Tython and Rakata Prime might prove interesting, if not helpful.” 

Theron continued to study her face. He knew something was amiss – that much Eva could tell. But this wasn’t the time or the place. 

He finally broke his gaze. “I’d better get moving – the faster we start running, the easier this will all be,” he spoke as he cleared the desk of a few files and data pads. 

She wordlessly nodded.

Theron gave the room a once over as he approached her, likely intending to pass her on his way out. Like last time, Eva would wait fifteen, twenty minutes before she left. She’d never been there, as usual. 

But Theron didn’t pass her by. Instead, he stopped as his right shoulder deliberately brushed her right, his hand suddenly grabbing at hers. They faced in opposite directions. Their fingers intertwined as his eyes were looking at some indeterminate point down the hallway. He would not look at her.

Eva couldn’t decide whether she should just look at some random point of her own, out the window in front of her, and spare herself from looking at him and the unexpected ache that came with that; or whether she should try to capture every last second of this meeting, in case it was a long time before she saw him again. Or in case it was the last time she saw him.

Ah. It might be. If he got caught in deep cover, it might be the last time. 

Eva committed to the second option: she would remember a man that was never there. She squeezed his hand. 

That seemed to give him the power of speech. He kept his breathing even – a conscious effort. “I can’t deal you in.” The words were so quiet. His jaw tensed, the stubble on his face already obvious even though it was nowhere near 1700.

“I know.” She really did. Eva looked up at his hair, still wavy and threatening to curl despite the pomade he used to spike it. The eyes – she really liked them. His skin was a warm, golden amber. At the moment, she supposed, he was paler than usual from being covered up, indoors, not out in the open sunlight. If he lived a more regular life, she could imagine a deeper bronze. She strained to remember anything particular about Grand Master Shan that she could associate with him – maybe the brow? She realized they had almost the same chin. Maybe she should have paid more attention to the Jedi. 

As her brain quickly catalogued these bits of data, these last images, she offered him a final compliment. “I’ll miss you.”

He did not break his stare down his hallway. He did not buckle and look at her. Theron’s eyes, however, flickered and softened. “One of the few,” he murmured.

“I wouldn’t care if I was the only one.” His grip tightened on her, and Eva did her best to squeeze his hand back and move her fingers. She wanted to make sure he could feel her. The way his eyes closed for a moment and then reopened said that he did.

Finally, his voice came out, as if what they were doing was completely normally for people in professional associations. “Good luck to you. We’ll send word as soon as we have something – and then we’ll see what this Revan guy is really made of.” 

Eva looked up at him and nodded. He could see her out of the periphery of his vision. One final squeeze of her hand, as if he took what he needed, and he walked away.

Eva turned to watch him walk down the long hallway toward the corner that Lana and Jakarro had turned as they left. Theron never looked back. His gait was swift, deliberate. She saw some grace – gymnastics, likely from when he was still being trained to do backflips with a lightsaber. Much of that was now overwritten by tactical training; he moved, conscious of his gun belt and blasters. 

Theron turned the corner sharply. He was gone. 

Eva waited fifteen, twenty minutes. Then she left as well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trant's 'stay-at-home' statement comes from the previous fic, Who She Is In the Dark, when Gary from analytics cracked the Mandalorian cache with the help of his boyfriend. That led to a promotion for Gary and an engagement for the boyfriend. Trant wanted Theron to recruit the boyfriend to SIS since he was apparently a smart guy, but Gary's partner stated that his plans were to be a stay-at-home father, as the couple planned to start a family soon after the wedding. Trant said this to get a rise out of Theron, nothing more.
> 
> 2 Chapters to go now -- thanks for reading.


	10. Dreams (Slightly NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron considers all the lovers he's had, and Eva remembers the last time she was in love with a spy. In two ships many light years apart, they wonder whether they're in lust or, more burdensome, they're in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter can be interpreted as NSFW; nothing as explicit as the first chapter but.... fair warning. I know I indicated 2 more chapters, but I felt they would suit better presented as one.

Many scenarios had flashed through Theron’s mind when he had looked at the easily sliceable door. They’d ranged from the schmaltzy to the pornographic. The consistent event in all of them had been kissing Eva goodbye, and that had been the ultimate turn-off.

He was running under one of his newer aliases, Malcom Troy. Given that Theron Shan was known to the public as an orphan, he thought the alias was a pretty good one, almost as good as his Tev Fith for the Manaan op that was now on the discard pile. He threw his rucksack into the private compartment on the overnight slow freighter to the Outer Rim and locked the door behind him. 

The accommodations were basic: a clean bed, a sonic fresher, a vac tube, and a sink that ran water. There was enough room to walk in, turn around, and close the door. That was it. That was all Theron really needed. It was home for the next 16 hours before he transferred at the next spaceport to another overnight freighter, under another name. Rinse and repeat until he was well and truly lost in the galaxy. 

Theron shucked his boots and shrugged off a non-descript brown jacket. Exhausted, he pulled off his trousers and climbed into bed, not bothering to fully undress. His hand slammed off the overheads, a thin line of light coming through the door. No point in sleeping yet however; the freighter was going to be a noisy, bumpy launch. So he lay in darkness.

Theron had left Eva on Manaan, but his mind hadn’t yet. Time to file away the paperwork. He couldn’t be distracted by her. He didn’t want to say goodbye with a first kiss – that was supposed to be a “hello” to something. Hell, he had enough problems with classifying her as a friend without his internal security alerts going off. He didn’t want to add to complexes by starting something and having it end in the same second – first and last kisses weren’t supposed to be the same thing.

Theron didn’t know when he’d see her again. If he’d ever see her again – he could turn up dead. She could die on one of her great adventures. Eva could choose not to answer his calls when the time came. She might have moved on to another job or she might be prioritizing the calls of another man.

That thought unexpectedly pierced him. Apparently, his heart wasn’t in on the “leaving behind” scheme either. 

That’s it. He had to evict her now or else he would fail at confronting the Revanite conspiracy. 

Theron placed his hands over his head, bracing them against the wall as his feet pressed down against the end of the bed.

Eva was now his friend. That was not a lie. They did care whether or not the other survived. He liked having intellectual contact with her. He liked the conversation he’d had with her as they drank coffee together. He liked seeing her disarmed and bleary-eyed but also armed and sharp-witted. He liked doing business with her. He liked bantering with her. He liked flirting with her, with or without alcohol. It was part of their interactions from the beginning. Eva didn’t bend for him and didn’t need him to approve of everything she did. She was already her own person without him around. He liked who she was. 

Complication: he desired her sexually. 

Theron pressed his hands into the wall as the feelings of shame manifested. It was out there now. He acknowledged it, finally. It, alongside the banter and flirting, had been there since the beginning of their association – at his first sight of her alongside that admiration for demanding the truth. He tried to disconnect from it. He had buried it, several times. 

Being sexually turned on by another person without any emotional investment wasn’t a problem within itself. Theron had gone out single at night and landed in someone’s bed by the following morning. Typically, he didn’t exchange Holonet addresses with the men; he did with the women, mostly in hope rather than in any actual expectation they’d call.

But now desire had apparently swayed – or almost swayed – his actions on the job. And there _was_ emotional investment.

Out of respect, Theron had locked the Mandalorian cache intel in an SIS office that didn’t belong to him.

Every voluntary interaction she had with him, however, had progressively become free game for desire to take root. He had eyed her up at the cantina at Fleet, when she’d showed off her hour-glass figure to him deliberately. He’d watched her move the entire night she dismantled the Imp markets. Flashes of warm porcelain skin mingled with the taste of whiskey among his memories. More primal urges wanted to know what she really tasted like (definitely not whiskey) and whether he could make her blush. He imagined what her body looked like, uninjured and without the beskar vest. His fingers tingled as he thought of holding her face in his hands, smelling ghostly traces of her shampoo in her mahogany hair. He wondered what she would sound like underneath his touch, under the press of his body. Maybe with her back, it’d be better for him to be under the press of her body. 

When Eva touched the sensitive skin around his implants, she made his knees weak. Those particular memories made Theron’s breath catch in the dark

When she had looked at him at Manaan, he knew she had those thoughts too. About him.

Theron pushed down on the bed with his feet. His dreams had started to evolve from the frustrated chase of the Dark Lady to the still-frustrating but much more pleasurable pursuit of Eva.

As if she needed much seducing. But that was the maddening part.

Eva respected his boundaries. She didn’t try to fix him or win him. She took him as he was. She listened. She befriended him. Eva liked him. Theron. He was a competent SIS agent and a (mostly) functional adult. He struggled with having a personal life unless it overlapped with his professional life, and that created conflict with his own code of conduct. Despite her obvious interest, Eva didn’t want to hurt Theron.

That probably enabled his hard-on for her. She did what he requested, not what he actually wanted – even if both of them knew wiser. His stray thoughts about the office had been obvious. This was now a problem because he almost acted on those impulses – he knew the time and the need to move and yet he had lingered for just a few seconds. He would have not done that before with any other asset. It had to stop now. 

Theron exhaled and pushed with his hands and feet at the same time. The only way this could have been worse was if he was in love. 

Was he in love? 

Even as he considered the words, his heart clenched and went cold. That would be the cruelest joke of all. It would be particularly vicious if it happened now, at this time.

Theron had been in love before. Then he became an adult. Men never did it for him in that department. Women, though -- he’d felt the infatuation, sent flowers and chocolate to the office, and taken the lady out. He had promised exclusivity, did breakfast the morning after, and hell, one had even started coaching him on the ‘meet the parents’ thing. He’d been in love.

But things happened. Too many missed dates, primarily. He didn’t say “I love you” soon enough – or he said it too early. ( _Never mutual, always unanchored, it never counted as a connection_.)

Theron was pretty sure one woman concluded he was a serial killer. She was freaked out by his apartment, saying it was like sleeping in a museum or a tomb, not a living space. Theron had so few possessions and personal effects. That, and given the secrecy of his job, she connected the wrong dots and dumped him.

Several were more emotionally needy than he could handle; that was a pretty low threshold, so it was more his fault than theirs. Others demanded to know information about him that he couldn’t or wouldn’t give. Men tended not to ask such questions, which Theron appreciated. By the same stroke, this was why he didn’t invest in them emotionally.

Eva was something else. The infatuation was absolutely certain. After that, the patterns fell completely apart. She knew who he was. She invested. She accepted him without the bribes of chocolate and dinners and status symbols. 

Eva accepted Theron even after that awful, vulnerable night. Now what?

Theron Shan reminded himself that he had no clue how long – weeks, months, a year – he would not be able to contact her. He also hadn’t told her everything. Her life moved quickly. The feelings would go away if he let them. It was only a joke if he fell for it -- fell for her. 

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

Leave her on Manaan. She was a smuggler. Her life went on without him. His life had to go on without her. Feelings had to be put aside, or else he couldn’t concentrate on what he had to do. He could only rest if the Republic was safe. Other feelings were shelved. He could be at peace if they were parted. No feelings meant no suffering. 

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

He knew he was weak. He acknowledged his foibles. He could guard against them. Theron was intelligent and a veteran of nearly thirteen years in SIS. He had everything he needed to go dark, survive, and expose the conspiracy.

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

No contact was for her safety. There was no possibility of an ardent encounter somewhere. Contact with him was dangerous. Feelings and failings would endanger her. Do objectively what was best. No extracurriculars. 

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

The path forward was clear. He had to stop the Cult of Revan from destroying both the Republic and Empire. Mostly the Republic. He had a mission. It was simple. It was orderly. 

_There is no death, there is the Force_

Theron scoffed. Who needed the Force to save the galaxy? And he wasn’t planning on dying. 

He felt the shudder of the freighter as it launched, the grind and metallic noises as it set off from the dock. Time to move on. 

_Goodbye, Eva._

**

But Theron dreamed of dawn, despite himself. He dreamed of crazy, risky, and impulsive things. He dreamed of her. 

**

On _Virtue’s Thief_ , Eva slowly drank a cup of tea as the ship sped away from Manaan. She had explained the situation to the crew: do not engage Theron, Lana, or Jakarro if they saw them in passing. That could get them killed or put the crew in danger. “Even you and Spy Guy?” Guss had asked.

“Especially me and Spy Guy,” she had answered. 

“Your taste for spies isn’t for the weak,” Akaavi dryly observed. 

She’d guffawed and headed toward the cockpit. It was a fast decision as she actually felt her blood pressure spike, and she was suddenly desperate to sit down and stare out a window. 

Bowie eventually brought her an entire pot of tea– nobody else seemed to be in the mood. She had poured herself a cup and now she sat alone. She’d locked the cockpit door. Akaavi’s observation had struck a nerve, long exposed but not paid attention to for weeks.

Yes, she was making the same mistake, except this time she knew up front he was a spy. 

Because he was charming. Again.

Because he did have his eye on the mission, despite any flirty extracurriculars. Again.

Because he made her feel as if there was something more than credits and blasters. Again.

Because he swore that he was a good man. At least that was new, different, and creative.

The similarities between Darmas Pollaran and Theron Shan were not obvious at first glance. Eva already knew she’d felt something for someone whose professional life was based in deception, acquisition of material outside normal channels, and information brokering. 

Who was she thinking of? Both fit the description. 

But there were differences. Eva leaned back in the captain’s chair. Theron hadn’t hidden it from her. That did not make her feel better. She had wondered, several times, whether she would have been as upset if Darmas had clued her in earlier. If Darmas hadn’t made her the patsy, if he’d treated her as an equal partner, would Eva have worked for the Empire? 

She was not confident that the answer would have been “no.” Darmas had admitted as much to her: he wouldn’t have needed so many covers and so many extracurricular schemes to keep everyone distracted if he had just let her in.

She hadn’t broken Darmas’ face for the Imp stuff; she’d done it when he expressed no regret about the trafficking. 

Don’t think of that. 

She put her cup and saucer down abruptly. She needed a dr—

No, she did not. 

Because she’d done too much of that. From Tatooine to the Core Worlds, she drank during all her waking hours. She’d tried to drown herself. By the time they got near Corellia, she had not been fit to captain her ship. It was Bowdaar who forced her to go to Ilum and literally cool her heels to get sober. If she had gone to Corellia, it would have been a disaster beyond what it already was. So for two weeks, she shot droids in the frozen wasteland. 

Then Eva went to Corellia. She confronted Darmas Pollaran. He ripped her heart out. She ripped his freedom away and killed any chance he had for an Imperial pension. Incidentally, she won the planet back for the Republic. 

Then Eva became the Voidhound and became the bane of Republic and Empire alike. At the same time, she quietly returned Ilum to finish business there, even as her fleet made chaos around the galaxy.

Shockingly, somehow, most of them stuck with her after the initial raids. And then she rode high in the galaxy.

At some point, she had a drink to celebrate. At some point. 

Eva poured another cup of tea. Some of it sloshed onto her saucer. Shaky hands. 

Theron hadn’t brought up Darmas. She had thought it was out of politeness, but it might have been out of self-preservation and --- 

What things had Theron done for the Republic and to make cover stories for the Republic?

_Hey, dumbass. How about you look at the paper file you have on him that you’ve been using as a blotter on your desk in your quarters?_

The voice inside her head was correct. She’d resolutely ignored that file pull for weeks. There was part of her that did not want to know – enjoy it, be ignorant, be young. Just let it run free without her digging into his background too much. She didn’t want to become paranoid about yet another thing. Eva didn’t want to be a crazy bitch. 

But the Voidhound was a hot commodity. Surely, research into who wanted her was called for. 

Also – don’t let it end like last time. In danger, entire crew in peril because the Captain can’t---

So she got up, unlocked the cockpit, walked to her quarters, grabbed a file (labelled in her careful handwriting “Theron Shan”), and returned to the cockpit, locking the door again. 

Athene had taught her how to write. Her handwriting looked almost exactly like her mother’s. It made for lovely continuity in her record books. She sometimes ran her hands over the old writing, the impressions in the page, the odd catches of some scent her mother wore – perfume? Shampoo? Soap? In newer records, her own handwriting made her feel as if Ma was still here. 

And it was rude to invoke her mother without her father. Quietly, Eva popped open the drawer on her side of the pilot’s panel. She lit up a cigarette, puffed twice to start it, and let it rest in the ash tray, its scent wafting through the cockpit. 

_Probably the only way to meet the parents, ha._ She let a small smile come across her face, even as the file folder was opened with trepidation.

According to her contacts, Theron Shan was born 13 BTC. She was actually born three-and-a-half years later. He was likely running on the assumption that her chain code was accurate and that she was three years _older_ than he was (and just looked great). It was a forgery that ultimately enabled her to inherit the ship directly and not end up in the Pub child welfare system.

That wasn’t the original, sorrowful intent of the chain code’s creation. It just worked out that way. 

So if Theron had a thing for older women – sorry to disappoint. 

No information on his parents, beyond some Jedi gossip about Satele Shan. As her source said, any time any organization has a policy of celibacy, more rumors spawned than actual violations of policy. There was no data on a biological father.

Theron’s childhood was two lines:

“Failed Jedi youngling.”

Eva’s thumb gently rubbed at that descriptor, as if trying to soften it. She frowned at it. What a cruel line in someone’s file. It even looked semi-official. 

“Coronet City Military Academy (3 years).” 

The Academy had scans of its yearbooks somewhere on the Holonet. Yes, the hair styles were dumb and the clothes were boring. Even through that, Eva saw how sweet-faced Theron had been as a child. He was about to go through adolescence in his first image. He looked wide-eyed and caught off-guard by this sudden change in life trajectory. By his last picture, he looked more like the man he would become. 

And then, as he said, was his SIS career, from 16 to now. Some of his early IDs were around, but later ones were harder to come by, probably secured. One of her sources managed to track down his swoop racing career on Manaan, which lasted from the age of 17 to 22, with some sporadic appearances since. Pretty good: he placed a few times, won a few major races. Couple of gnarly accidents. 

Theron was around 18 when he got his implants, not a surprise as they required adult consent. He grew out his hair almost immediately to hide the scarring from the implants. Eva was well-founded in the concern that they might hurt– she’d seen men brought to their knees by a well-aimed slap or pinch.

An eyebrow arched as she read the first few lines of his activities the last seven years. He spent time breaking up slaving rings in Coruscant, and he was good at it. That was big points for her and her Wookiee. 

That work was interrupted by the reappearance of Master Ngani Zho after 10 years of being AWOL since the Treaty of Coruscant. Apparently, he had infiltrated the Empire and --

Wait. That was the time Theron went to military school. Zho had given up custody of him and then disappeared almost immediately thereafter. No contact. 

That didn’t sit well with her and not just because of her own present situation with Theron. She handled her promotion at 16. More or less. After being denied his biological parents, she couldn’t imagine how Theron dealt with Zho’s departure at 13. She impulsively shuffled the papers back to look at the boy’s face. There was some indication he had been intended to go to the military academy at Coruscant, but that was tabled by the Sacking of Coruscant earlier that year. All the same, Theron would have been trained to fight for a future that seemed impossible, after being abandoned by the only father he knew. 

Maybe it was a good thing she’d hesitated to look at his file until this point. It was from before he told her most of the introductory information himself. This felt less intrusive than if she’d gone into all those conversations forearmed. Helpfully, it connected some of the dots. 

Procrastination and existential dread about potential lovers seemed to be making this work out. Let’s keep rolling with that. She gave one last sad look to the boy in the holo still before heading back to the semi-classified information she wasn’t supposed to have. 

So, Master Zho. In the Empire for 10 years. Reappeared. Theron immediately dropped the antislavery op to go to him. This somehow resulted in a hostage named Teff’ith, later affiliated with spice smuggling and dealing. Eva flipped a few pages ahead to her file. A very pretty yellow Twi’leek. Former Old Tion Brotherhood. Hutt smugglers – not under Eva’s Voidfleet. She distantly recalled the list she had compiled with Theron. The Twi’s name was not on there, as far as she could remember. 

Based on what Eva’s sources could figure, there was some Big Bad Weapon – a Sun Razer? -- that Theron and the old Jedi had taken out, at the cost of the Jedi’s life; Zho’s death date was in the file, and Eva didn’t think it was a coincidence. 

She’d fought a World Razer. Aliens weren’t very creative with their world-ending device names.

The affiliation with the Twi apparently also put Theron into the loop about Hutt smuggling and the slave trade –he messed around with Morbo once or twice and ruined at least one slave auction. A few years ago, the pair (with yet another Jedi, Gnost Dural) managed to destroy the Ascendant Spear, another Big Bad Weapon. Something something fallen padawan. Whatever. However, since this was actually done during the war (and not during the Cold War), they got a big damn medal for it, the Cross of Glory. Apparently, it was indeed worth a lot more than the tchotchke Darok had shoved at her. A large glossy holo still fell to the floor.

Eva plucked it up at the corner carefully. There was Theron. He hadn’t started doing the fauxhawk yet. He looked exhausted and almost certainly was forced to pose with the kriffing medal. It was an internal still – there was no public presentation, as Theron’s face would become recognizable, thus making him useless as an SIS field agent. 

Teff’ith got one too, and then she disappeared off into Nar Shaddaa. Apparently, she still operated in Hutt territory as an unaligned smuggler. Good luck, kid. Eva knew the limits of her own reach in the galaxy. She also caught the fact that on Theron’s file, Teff’ith was classified as ‘known associate.’ On her file, Theron was considered by her to be ‘kill on sight.’

That sounded both complicated and hilarious.

There were a few pieces of gossip picked up around the bars closest to SIS. Eva drained another cup of tea before this one. According to scuttlebutt, Theron was discreet about his private life, thus speculation ran wild. Somehow, he’d slept with all genders and sexual identities yet was also a virgin, according to the gossip pool. However, Eva’s source was able to dig up a few semi-reliable internal reports (read as: Holonet texts in a few secret chat rooms) from the secretary pool and tech specialists that said he was fun but not commitment material. Reports made by men were significantly outnumbered by reports made by women, though both had some success in pulling the lad. Women tended to hold his attention longer than men. 

Theron wasn’t professionally partnered consistently with anyone, because he had a tendency to do all the work himself and only inform his partner after the paperwork was filed. This included going undercover for weeks at a time without notifying said partner, meaning the partner had no idea what was going on while working with Theron and thus could not give answers as to where he was or what he was doing. This annoyed Trant to no end, so he essentially saved himself the trouble and let Theron do whatever. 

There was more than one person who thought Theron was Director Trant’s son from some torrid affair years ago. Trant was the office bicycle for cis het women in SIS, seemingly. Eva thought the dude clearly had something going on, with 3 wives (2 ex, 1 current) and a _lot_ of bedroom intel in circulation. 

Apparently, during a recent series of surveillance ops in rapid succession, a memo was sent out to the married women stating they could not all write down Theron, Gary in analytics, or Val’tem the SysAdmin as their male partner of choice. The men of SIS had a lot of fun with that one, speculating either that there were a bunch of cougars in the house or that the three men were gay. The women themselves sent a sharp-worded memo back stating that this wouldn’t have happened if other men in SIS could keep their hands to themselves and follow mutually agreed protocol. Ultimately, Gary was unavailable, due to going on his honeymoon with his husband, so Val’tem and Theron ended up with very full social calendars for a few weeks. 

The number and variety of injuries sustained by Theron on ops, according to the office gossip pool, was mindboggling.

There were other merit decorations and a few awards for sharp-shooting, but that, for the most part was Theron Shan, as far as her cursory intel dive went. She could probably find more, if she pulled in some favors.

But it was still a hell of a lot more than she’d ever had on the ex. 

On Darmas. 

Officially.

Unofficially, she had been the owner of one holo locket, an heirloom from his mother, that contained images of both Darmas as a young man and his ever-serene and dignified father. He’d given it to her about eighteen months in, after his mother had died. She later confirmed that was all true. Maybe not the “I love you, and I think my mother would have loved you – this was hers” part, though. 

It took her six months after Corellia, but Eva had ultimately sent the locket back to him in jail. She hoped he was clenching it somewhere safe. He had lingered in her mind since, but never in her heart. 

Because of what he did. 

Stop it. 

Eva needed to untangle things and move forward, wiser but still willing to go all in. Eva deserved a full life, not some half-assed attempt out of fear. Instead cobbling together different men on different nights to create a completely satisfying relationship as on Makeb, why not consolidate? 

Enough. Clear the tables. A new game had to be dealt. She had to reset everything. 

Eva pulled the earliest entry of her captain’s log. It fortified her. It hardened her. It made everything seem easy in comparison. 

Eva stopped before she played it. Maybe it could wait. The day was coming up soon. Maybe…

Breathe in. Breathe out. Make the decision now. Don’t hesitate. A smuggler who hesitates is a smuggler who is dead. Eva placed her tea aside. She snubbed out the cigarette. 

Eva arranged the contents of the folder so that the most recent image of the spy and the picture of him as a boy lay at the top of pile. “Stay in one piece. I want to see what hand you would deal me. I hope you live that long.”

_Hello, Theron._

**

There wasn’t any sex or a desk in sight. She reclined in his arms, head on his shoulder, as they looked over some random balcony at some random beautiful place. His hands clasped over her waist, and he whispered his affection to her, that low voice punctuated by a kiss to her temple and then to her hairline, where his lips had brushed before …

When she woke, she found that she had ultimately fallen asleep in the gunner’s compartment, wedged tightly against the bulkhead and cradled by the viewport. Her sleepy imagination had transformed them into Theron’s warm, strong weight at her back. 

The dream was not a disappointment. Eva worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song for this ship is "Why Does Love Have to Be So Sad" by Derek and the Dominoes. The departure from Manaan and this chapter (originally 2 parts, but consolidated) were written with that playing over the speakers. 
> 
> And yes, Theron is absolute pants at choosing aliases. 
> 
> "No Contact." Hm. We'll see how long THAT lasts.

**Author's Note:**

> sullustangin.tumblr.com


End file.
